just had the frightening thought that western civilization (at least whats left) continues to decline and there will be no places anymore which properly can burn plastic stuff away.
europe will look like a slum with garbage _everywhere_ in my lifetime. ffs.

@bonifartius Doubtful bc they combine pellets/wood waste with incinerators. Electricity is very, very valuable and some incinerators provide centralized vapor heating to the city. Prices will go up but they will pay you for stuff to burn.

@CapitalB
didn't know they use wood for this.
i only know that "recycling" is 90% burning. at least better than somewhere in the landscape :)

@bonifartius not here. 95% Aluminum rec. means 95% reflow.

Energy for were I live:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energie_Wasser_Bern

@CapitalB yeah, metals (and glass) are another story, but they are (at least those commonly used in wrapping, eg. iron and aluminium) also less problematic for the environment.
that's where the success story of recycling ends, other processes to really reuse materials are often just too costly. polymers except pet (which is downcycled into fleece..) are often just too dirty.
the only thing which really helps is using materials which are either _really_ biodegradeable or are common-in nature-materials (aluminium is rapidly passivated by oxygen, iron is common, glass is fancy sand..).

@bonifartius but this means they will burn all polymers to generate electricity and not much will be around. At least at places with power stations.

@CapitalB my original thought was more about what will happen here if things go south. i don't think europe will last much longer as it is, either the EU goes full burocracy-and-surveillance-as-government which is shitty because effectively plutocrats will reign, and those care jack shit for the environment if it's in the way of making money. or it breaks into more or less functioning nation states. the problem of the latter is that without the hyperglobalized supply chains many common things will become immensely costly. having good waste processing isn't the top priority if necessities are becoming rare and expensive.
so, while currently things are okish (aside from toxic/radioactive waste), i wouldn't bet that it stays this way. hence imho better sooner than later switch to things which are less problematic in getting rid of.