Title: Burning Plastic: Incineration Causes Air Pollution, Dioxin Emissions, Cost Overruns. - Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives
Headings: Burning Plastic: Incineration Causes Air Pollution, Dioxin Emissions, Cost Overruns.
Burning Plastic: Incineration Causes Air Pollution, Dioxin Emissions, Cost Overruns.
Plastic Pollution Solutions:
Zero Waste + Redesign

Content: As part of the Break Free From Plastics movement, we know that this isn’t just about managing the problem. It’s about preventing it in the first place. Incineration — including gasification, pyrolysis, and plasma arc — is not a viable solution for plastic pollution, and is harmful. Dangerous for marine life and human health. Burning plastic and other wastes releases dangerous substances such as heavy metals, Persistent Organic Pollutants, and other toxics into the air and ash waste residues. Experience looking at the few commercial-scale gasification, pyrolysis, and plasma arc facilities that have actually processed municipal solid wastes (as opposed to processing other materials) shows that these approaches can emit the same pollutants as mass-burn incinerators. Such pollutants contribute to the development of asthma, cancer, endocrine disruption, and the global burden of disease. Persistent Organic Pollutants travel long distances, and ultimately deposit into the ocean and polar ice caps, where they can adsorb onto other plastic marine debris and microplastics, bioaccumulating up the food chain, threatening marine and human health. New incinerator technologies are prone to failure and ineffective at eliminating plastic pollution. Many companies claim to heat plastic to turn them into oil or energy using new incinerator technologies such as gasification, pyrolysis, and plasma arc.