Are plastics a carbon sink and how much carbon is released to the atmosphere making them?
The idea of a carbon sink is a bit misunderstood here. The idea of a carbon sink is a reduction of carbon that comes from the atmosphere. It must “fix” carbon that is already in the air. Trees are a carbon sink, for the most part, because their mass is made of of carbon obtained from
The atmosphere. Unless the plastic formation process you are thinking of is vastly different that any industrialized ones, they are taking carbon from oil essentially. Since the carbon from the oil
Has not yet been released into the atmosphere, it would not qualify as a sink.