The 2021 Virginia legislature passed a really bad compromise piece of “environmental” legislation. They swapped a styrofoam ban for extremely polluted air, water, and land. Instead of styrofoam microbeads in our air and water, on the land and in our food, we get to have our air polluted and our lungs further damaged from heavy metals, mercury, lead, and other wonderful things. What a compromise!
It’s been estimated that we will have 5 or 6 of these extremely polluting incinerators, now governed by waste management regulations, moved over to a “manufacturing” category.
Who regulates these new factories? Who ensures that they don’t spew toxic fumes all around us?
“Advanced recycling” is a way to hide pollution. and to keep the fossil fuel industry in the plastics business. So they can continue to make plastic things, then burn them, to continue profiting on extracting fossil fuels for all sorts of places. Think Exxon Valdez, Gulf of Mexico, Africa, and all the other places on this planet that have been despoiled.