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.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 10.1 ms ] threadThat 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.