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Contrary to popular opinion, plastic DOES decompose. Exposed to sunlight, the compounds that make up most plastics are gradually degraded and depolymerized, reducing back to its original components, but it is a slow process. Once the depolymerization has proceeded to a point, then bacterial action further reduces the organic compounds back into carbon dioxide and methane, then dispersed into the environment.

Or the process may be greatly accelerated by simply using the discarded plastic products as fuel in an incinerator, and using the heat energy as power source, perhaps to heat water or generate electricity.

For a sure, clean and thorough elimination of plastic waste, a system called Plasma Arc Conversion, deconstructs the structure of ALL organic materials, breaking the majority of all organic waste into hydrogen and carbon monoxide, syngas, by sending it through an electric arc at some 18,000 degrees, which turns most elements into an ion stripped of its valence electrons. Metallic ions fall out of the syngas mix and are trapped in a vitreous compound made up of mostly silica, and is drained away in a thick taffy-like ooze, where it may be further refined into either aggregate, stone-like material that may be used in road building or even formed into bricks for construction, or it may serve as a high-quality ore for many of the metallic elements it contains, perhaps much more concentrated than most ores that are being commercially extracted now.

Meanwhile, the syngas being produced makes an excellent fuel to poser the electric generation plant that produces the sustained plasma arc that maintains the flow of organic material into syngas. This process actually yields MORE syngas than is consumed by by burning it as the source of heat energy for the electricty generation.

Once the technical difficulties get worked out, virtually ALL plastic waste may be then totally recycled, some ending up as the feedstock for synthesis of hydrocarbons through the Fischer-Tropsch process, or by thermal depolymerization, the process by which biomass is converted into various hydrocarbons, which can be done on a commercial basis to dispose of organic matter in such locations as slaughterhouses. Under sufficient heat and pressure, in the presence of sufficient water to make the process work, biomass can be rapidly converted from its original composition into a form of crude oil, kerogen. This process takes a matter of only a few hours to do what takes place at depths beneath the earth’s crust. over a matter of thousands or even millions of years.