Most likely a bit of both.

I never requested paper bags for groceries. The folds in the bags are where insects lay their eggs. Or so I have thought for many years of hearing that. I never want any paper bags in our home.

That is not the common definition of recycling. The common definition is recovering the material from an item so that it can be used again as that same material - re-cycling. Aluminum from cans can be reused as aluminum; glass from bottles can be reused as glass; plastics can be reused as plastics.

Our trash isn't recycled into energy, it is destroyed (burned) to extract energy. Except for some metals, the original material no longer exists to be reused.

I suppose if you insist on calling trash-to-energy a form of recycling then every engine that burns a petroleum product is also a recycling system that recycles oil into energy.

Yes, I think so. And it is particularly nice to have clean process as well. Energy has far more potential use than plastic. I guess “recycling” is a limited term indicating reuse. But the term has had a sort of an unwarranted halo attached to it. I do understand concern when plastics are not burnt but thrown into landfills and oceans. People can do better, and in our case, we do.

On the other hand, recycling plastics has always been iffy or problematic.

New report unveils what plastic makers knew about recycling : NPR

Generally, municpalities, ship the plastics collected in recycling bins (eventually) to third world countries, many of whom dump them in the oceans.

https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/wp-co...rToxic_ENG.pdf

Both these may be true; I didn't claim that recycling was better than burning. I only responded that "trash-to-energy" is not the common definition of the word "recycle."

Burning leaves various kinds of altered materials behind. Like wood fire in a fireplace leaves ashes and smoke and various gases, burnt trash leaves stuff, too. What kinds of stuff depends on what the trash consists of. So, the questions I have are, what does the waste from burning consist of (metals, glass, plastic gunk, ash)? Is any of the waste toxic or harmful to the environment in any way.? How is the residue or waste from burning disposed of. What happens to it?
Burning oil, coal, natural gas, to create energy produces some pretty nasty by products. What about trash? Just how clean ( or unclean) is it?

& I was responding to "plastics can be reused at plastics'.

you took the words right out of my mouth!!:1rotfl:

why, YES, it is!!! :bowdown:

and i remember a few years back reading how the 3rd worlders aren't taking it anymore, that they felt we were sending them our trash

Stop bringing logic into this! This thread is about virtue signaling, not common sense!

Half the produce is in plastic.

Hopefully just words

Don’t plastic burn?