site banner
beej67  [probably less intelligent than you]  1yr ago (text post)   967 thread views

What percentage of incinerated plastics are released as atmospheric microplastic particles? I can't find any study on this. (lots of other math in post)

90% of ash from coal production is fly ash, the rest is bottom ash. 1% of fly ash makes it into the atmosphere after scrubbers and bag houses.

https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Fly_ash

Bottom ash microplastic ratios for plastic incinerators are 360 / metric ton at the low end to 102000 / metric ton of waste at the high end.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304389420314187

So if we pretend (false) that the particle size distribution from coal and from plastic incineration is the same (it's not) and we pretend that scrubbers and baghouses would work the same (they won't) then your range of microplastic particles released is between 3240 and 918000 per metric ton of waste from the plastic incineration process. So then you have to correct for how much waste is actually produced in plastic incineration. I can't find science on this, I can only find this obviously biased source:

https://grist.org/living/whats-worse-burning-plastic-or-sending-it-to-a-landfill/

...which states that somewhere between 15% to 30% of plastics turn to ash when incinerated, which is far less efficient than coal.

So using all of those bad coal assumptions above about fly ash distribution sizing and interception, and using the biased source on plastics incineration ash waste ratios, the best case for burning 1 metric ton of plastic is 486 microplastic particles released into the atmosphere, and the worst case is 275,400 microplastic particles released into the atmosphere.

That's a wide range, from "no big deal" up to "holy shit," and I can find no study on fly ash microplastic release ratios anywhere. Does anyone know of any hard research on this topic? The only/best way to answer this question would be to sample plastic incineration plant effluent.

9
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The second link in the post discusses the ratio of "plastic incineration dust" to "residual left over microplastics" in samples of bottom ash. It's not many but it is some. The mathematics in the post extrapolates those ratios from bottom ash to fly ash, which may not be a good assumption, which is why I was wondering if anyone knew of any studies on microplastics in the fly ash of plastic incinerators.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats