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Starch-based bioplastic may be as toxic as petroleum-based plastic, study finds
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 13 May 2025
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CO2 is CO2, it doesn't matter where the carbon came from. If you're sequestering plastics that were made from plants then you're taking it out of the atmosphere for a net benefit.
It was never intended as a carbon sequestration method, and it would make a very poor one. Considering the energy input in creating it, as well, it's likely CO2 positive over its lifespan. We would be better off not making it at all if that's the main consideration.
"Never intended" doesn't mean it doesn't work as one.
The point I'm making here is that if we already have a chunk of plastic, why not bury it? Your own comment that I originally responded to was about how the composting process for these bioplastics is difficult to do and so people rarely do it. Landfills are comparatively quite easy and common, we already have that process well established. So if you've got a chunk of carbon-rich plastic right there in your hand and you're trying to decide what to do with it, which makes more sense, turning it into CO2 to vent into the atmosphere, or sequestering it effectively forever? There are carbon sequestration projects that go to much greater lengths to bury carbon underground than this.
Landfills don't necessarily sequester the CO2 for long. Often, they release the carbon as methane. Methane is a much worse greenhouse gas than CO2, and so landfills often pipe the methane to be burned. The amount of CO2 released for every unit of methane is a smaller greenhouse concern than the original methane, but none of this should be considered sequestration.
If the plastic is not degrading then it's not releasing anything, be it methane or CO2.
Isn't one of the big talking points against plastic the "it'll be around for thousands of years" thing?
The plastic is degrading, as everything on the earth does.
It's not degrading as fast as the makers said it would, thereby leaching poisons into the ground and waterways.
Again, a properly built landfill doesn't have that problem. I specified that right from the start. They're designed to manage leachate.
And ofc they never fail. Right?
Your standard of acceptability is "perfect", then?
Yes, especially when it comes to pumping more toxins into our air, soil and water ... that we need to be healthy so we can be healthy.
When your standard is "perfection" then nothing at all will ever meet it.
Doesn't mean we don't try.