alt Hacker NewsNitpick, some of the refineries products (~10-20%) are not burned but used to make plastics and other chemicals. I agree though, the effect of destroying the refinery, pushing up prices thus reducing demand dominates.
Nitpick, some of the refineries products (~10-20%) are not burned but used to make plastics and other chemicals. I agree though, the effect of destroying the refinery, pushing up prices thus reducing demand dominates.
Ultimately most of those products get burned too. Waste-to-energy burns trash to make heat and electricity. It's an improvement over just straight up burning the oil but not by much.
Pushing up prices on new plastic does make recycling more economic but most of those products still get burned. If you're lucky on average they make it round the loop once, maybe your mountain dew bottle makes a plastic trash bag and then we burn the bag.