9: Bury, Recycle, or Compost?

In which we discuss the relative merits of burying, recycling, or composting plastic waste, in particular, packaging. We distinguish biodegradable from compostable. Jamie describes Eastman Chemical Co.’s new process to take any plastic and break them down into their small molecule components and resynthesize new plastics, a true recycling process. We decide burying plastics is not so bad because it keeps carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Finally, we discuss the idea of geoengineering the atmosphere with sulfur dioxide to reflect sunlight back into space, which is terrible because sulfur dioxide becomes acid rain. Produced, edited and posted by Felicia Etzkorn, with co-host Jamie Ferguson. Music created and performed by Wendy Godley.

Waste by Katie O'Neill: 

https://earthbound.report/2019/08/19/book-review-waste-by-kate-oneill/

Eastman Unveils Recycling Solution to Combat Global Plastic Waste: https://www.waste360.com/plastics/eastman-unveils-recycling-solution-combat-global-plastic-waste