How does recycling bottles help mitigate global warming?

Doesn't throwing a plastic bottle into the landfill effectively sequester the carbon?

it does to make new plastic.

What do you mean by, "effectively sequester the carbon"?

BTW, aluminum is the lowest energy recylcable material -- so if you have a choice between plastic, glass and aluminum, use aluminum.

the carbon is effectively gone from the global carbon cycle.

You're going to have to burn more fuel and use more resources to make a new plastic bottle if you throw away old bottles. Recycling saves energy and resources.

Plastic is an organic substance, and it's a lot more biodegradable than most people realize. In fact, Teflon and its precursors are biodegradable enough that it's now a major source of xenoestrogenic (poisonous estrogen mimicking) pollutants.

The entire issue with carbon, anyway, is the release of greenhouse gases; carbon dioxide in particular. "Carbon", as you're probably aware, has become a buzzword. We will even have to factor the "carbon equation" into our increasing use of biofuels. Although biofuels' own greenhouse gas cycles are quite rapid, they could be significant enough to cause trouble -- unless we plan for it intelligently.

Yep, it's not easy for even an educated layperson to understand all the issues. Not even the scientists do -- they're learning a little more every day, but nature doesn't stand still for humans and our activities.

In the long run, going back to re-usable bottles -- even glass ones -- may be the more economical, as well as environmentally-friendly, course of action. The energy required to manufacture an old-fashioned soda bottle is not trivial, but if that bottle is re-used several dozen times, the energy becomes an "investment" instead of a non-recoverable cost. It may be worth trying again, even to have a real-life model of re-use to study.

--p!

plastics are mostly made from oil. To refine and turn into plastic takes large amounts of energy. Glass bottles that are rueusable would be much better but all the soda, dairy and beer companies don't want to spend the money collecting, cleaning and inspecting returned bottles.

Less raw materials , too (oil, other chemicals).

as 1932 said, recycling plastic takes up less energy than creating it from scratch. Plus, most plastics biodegrade in a 'few' years - between 10 to 1000, depending on the composition - whereas the original oil (most are made from oil) has been out of circulation for millions of years. So while it may delay the effect for a while, it's not indefinite. You're breathing plastic bottles from the 70's and 80's right now.

true? I didn't think standard plastic bottles broke down that quickly *unless you mean a few molecules from each bottle have escaped but it's negligible*.

OK, you're not getting lung-fulls of the stuff - compared to the shit from a billion exhaust pipes, it's pretty negligible. But "non-biodegradable" plastics sitting in nice, warm, festering landfills can decompose completely in a decade or so (depending on the plastic), producing various gasses and all those lovely groundwater toxins we enjoy every day. Given that most plastics do take longer, landfills will be quietly bubbling out crud for centuries.

Happy thoughts. :)

Ross Gelbspan wrote in "Boiling Point" that all that packaging and bottling takes a tremendous amount of energy and creates CO2 emissions. I recommend that book.