Why can’t we simply burn all the non-renewable waste (such as single-use plastics, etc) and vent the gasses and particulate matter into holding containers to prevent their absorption into the environment?

Question

Is it a matter of the technology not existing? I understand it’s a grossly oversimplified model and I am neither an engineer nor a chemist, but I can’t imagine that we couldn’t simply set up a furnace that vents down a cooling pipe into a container or facility that captures the gasses and toxic particulate/waste for either further processing, reuse in industry, or just to stockpile.

In: Earth Science

Answer 1

* Costly
* Space – there are better uses for land than storing ever increasing amounts of gas
* What happens if there’s a leak? Vast amounts of concentrated and potentially harmful gas released. Sure, it’s less than the total quantity but it’s concentrated and localised.

We have scrubbers that clean the gas, but not always, we have ‘Energy from Waste’ so we can recover something of use from the waste, but not always. There are better, cheaper, easier, and safer options.

Not that the options we use are safe or the best, just relatively.