Currently most plastic waste isn’t recycled in the US (or elsewhere), and the collection of plastic waste for “recycling” is more greenwashing, most of the collected waste ends up in a landfill or exported to the 3rd world.
Right now recycling plastic is akin to pushing toothpaste back into the tube, the system is set up to produce virgin plastic resin & make stuff for a minimum cost. And with society socializing the disposal costs it’s difficult for alternatives (such as biodegradable materials) to gain traction in the marketplace. Due to the lack of markets for reclaimed plastic the value is low, making the collection & transportation of discarded plastic a money loosing proposition.
So we need to change the economics of plastic, one way would be to impose a tax on every ton of virgin plastic resin produced / imported into the US, there would be no tax on reclaimed resin or biodegradable resin. The proceeds of this tax would be used to build the infrastructure to gather, sort & transport plastic waste. In 2023 the US produced 65 million tons of plastic resin, a $10/ton tax would raise $650 million for recycling infrastructure. Have the tax increase annually at 10X the inflation rate, the tax is both reducing the cost to gather plastic waste and is increasing the value of reclaimed plastic (which isn’t taxed) and making biodegradable alternatives more cost competitive. Halt the tax escalation when the recycle rate reaches 90%.
One would really need to understand the chemistry of burning and what is in the effluent going up the stack and whatever residue is left behind. Yes one could use the burning plastic to generate power, which is a plus, just need to make certain that we don’t create a more severe problem down stream.
Sounds like a process one could automate with an array of sensors on the stack gasses and combustion process. How sensitive is the combustion process to the type of plastic, ie can one burn #1 & #2 together or do they need to be separated? Related question - has anyone explored the use of marker dies in the resin that would facilitate automated sorting? For instance #1 plastic would have a die that would fluoresce at 1,000nm? Since I suspect the energy produced wouldn’t come close to paying for the capital cost & collection cost one could still use the resin tax to underwrite making this system function financially. BTW - I focused on the resin since there are relatively few producers as opposed to products where there are a near infinite number of parties involved.