Explainers, teardowns, and myth-busting on waste management systems and green engineering.
Burning municipal waste for electricity emits more CO2 per unit of power than a coal plant. The climate case for incineration rests entirely on what the waste would have done instead, not on the electricity.
Collection trucks and sorting lines are visibly energy-hungry, which makes the myth feel obvious. EPA's own numbers say otherwise for most materials — but the word doing the damage in the myth is "always", and it cuts both ways.
Energy recovery has a legitimate place in a waste system. It sits below prevention, reuse, recycling and composting - and roughly a tenth of what goes in still comes out as ash bound for landfill.
A battery that no longer powers your device still holds enough energy to start a fire when it is crushed in a collection truck or a sorting line. The recycling symbol on it does not mean curbside.
The chemistry is real. The label is doing a lot of work. If the outputs are hydrogen gas and mineral carbonate, no plastic has been recycled — something else has happened.