system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: We all know plastics aren't biodegradable and that's bad, so why can't we just use chemical science to break them down ourselves?
gpt
We can, but the problem is you end up with a soup of toxic chemicals that cant be economically reused. It all comes down to money - it is cheaper to burn or bury the plastics than to resuse them - it may also be greener to bury them as at least the CO2 is locked up for a longer time.