I see these articles about landfills overflowing and waste being improperly dumped in our oceans. Why can’t we just burn all of the garbage and never have to deal with it again?
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Short answer – we *kind of can*. Plastic for example is just solid oil, and ounce for ounce burning plastic gives you the same amount of energy as burning oil. We do have powerplants that can generate electricity, or at least hot water, by burning trash.
The biggest problem is trash has all sorts of stuff you don’t want to burn. All sorts of nasty chemicals and materials go into the waste stream that it’s best to bury in a safe manner, burning them just makes nasty chemicals airborne where they can pollute the air or water supplies.
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