
Plastic Straw Ban: Degrading Plastics Discovered to Emit Greenhouse Gases - nikse
https://www.inverse.com/article/47667-greenhouse-gas-degrading-plastic-polyethylene
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jimnotgym
TlDr when you break up long chain hydro-carbons you get a release of carbon...

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gus_massa
I mostly agree.

That plastic produce CO2 when decomposed is not a surprise if you have a
tiiiiiny knowledge of chemistry. They say that they will discuss the CO2 in
another article. (There are some problems, "bad" plastics that last foever and
accumulate will produce a small amount of CO2 each year that is good; and
"good" plastic that are biodegradable will produce more CO2 each year that is
bad. It's difficult to be good in all metrics.)

In the article they discuss that some plastic also release methane that is
much worse for the greenhouse effect. (And ethylene that I'm not sure how bad
it is.) I guess it is not very surprising, but it is slightly more surprising
than CO2. I didn't find a good discussion about how much worse it is, because
the press article lacks any technical information. It could be important or
not, but the press article prefer to say " _at an alarming rate. (Is there any
other kind of rate?)_ " than to give good information.

