Have you ever burned ordinary plastic? The smell is horrific, there are some truly nasty poisons being released.
Furthermore, compostable plastics will solve the biggest problem of plastic pollution -- the a-hole that just tosses plastic garbage in the ground because he/she doesn't give a damn. Compostable plastics compost much faster in proper municipal/industrial composting facilities, so it is still important to throw the stuff away in compost bins and to have regular pickup service, but they will compost in the environment too. Thus, there is some defense against the morons that just litter.
In other words, compostable plastics fail better than all the other choices.
> Have you ever burned ordinary plastic? The smell is horrific, there are some truly nasty poisons being released.
Only if you don't use enough oxygen. Except for PVC plastic does not have any bad atoms in it, if fully burned the exhaust is completely safe (it's just water and CO2).
A proper, hot, incinerator will burn plastic very safely.
Why bother with compostable plastics if we can just bury the plastics in a landfill and forget about them? The volume of plastics is insignificant, the only problem is plastics that don't end up in landfills but in oceans instead.
Furthermore, compostable plastics will solve the biggest problem of plastic pollution -- the a-hole that just tosses plastic garbage in the ground because he/she doesn't give a damn. Compostable plastics compost much faster in proper municipal/industrial composting facilities, so it is still important to throw the stuff away in compost bins and to have regular pickup service, but they will compost in the environment too. Thus, there is some defense against the morons that just litter.
In other words, compostable plastics fail better than all the other choices.