"Instead of paying more to recycle, we could spend that money far more effectively on other environmental mitigation measures like carbon capture."

Yeah, let's stop doing the fairly well established recycling programs that have knock on benefits like reducing pollution, and instead start scaling an entirely unproven and expensive mitigation program.

These are some prominent Effect Altruism guys so I know "cause prioritization" is their whole thing. But I think this is just basic contrarianism, because you cant fundraise off the fact that the cultural shift to recycling in the first world has been pretty successful and positive.

ALSO, what is the obsession with embodied energy?

Like lets think about plastic bags from an object use standpoint. Given you have a collection of stuff to carry would you prefer:

A) A reasonably sturdy bag that can be styled to your preference (like with art or whatever) that you have to remember to bring with you when you need.

B) The literal minimum possible material to be considered a bag. Even money whatever you put into it will punch straight through the bottom, or you'll need to use 2-4 nested bags anyway. And it'll be uncomfortable to hold the whole time.

I think from an object use perspective a reusable bag is more pleasant to use.

But embodied energy calculations are convenient because you can get numbers to compare. But it ignores externalities.

Like if you actually considered the embodied energy of the median tote bag vs the median plastic bag from the point that it was extracted from the ground to the point that it returns to dust, I think the story would look really different. I'll bet a sizable percentage of plastic bags don't even make it through their first use. Meanwhile I've got tote bags that I think are fully 15 years old. Plus if you consider the remediation future generations will need to do for plastic bags. meanwhile I can actually bury a cotton tote bag in the dirt to decompose and it doesn't need infrastructure to prevent poisoning the water supply.

Did the authors consider the embodied energy of the landfill itself? Shipping? Trash collection? Ongoing monitoring? The embodied energy of the future carbon capture system?

It's just so convenient to look only at the materials, equate that to kg of co2, and use that for whatever narrative makes you feel good.

Almost all EA takes I’ve read strike me as basic contrarianism

> "Instead of paying more to recycle, we could spend that money far more effectively on other environmental mitigation measures like carbon capture."

Carbon capture is a scam to allow fossil consumption to continue as is. The only path forward is rapid destruction of fossil fuel demand and transitioning to clean energy and electric mobility. At this time, there is no effective technology to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Therefore, capital is best invested where that investment will most rapidly avoid carbon emissions. Broadly speaking, at this time, this is electrifying light and heavy vehicles (includes scooters and ebikes!), and decommissioning coal plants (low carbon generation, batteries, etc will eventually push out fossil gas generation). It's not sexy, but it's straightforward.

Carbon capture may be an effective option in the future, but at the moment, it in no way can be relied on as a component of climate change mitigation. It's performance art.

Solar Power Is Booming in Emerging Markets - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49537375 - September 2026

Global heating will hit at least 1.8C, UN warns, and there are ‘no good outcomes’ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49536875 - September 2026

Ex-oil engineer warns about potential climate collapse [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49335833 - August 2026

EU Locks In Plan To Triple Energy Storage Capacity By 2030 - https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/EU-Locks-In-Plan-... - August 7th, 2026 ("The EU has agreed to nearly quadruple its energy storage capacity, from 55 GW today to a targeted 200 GW by 2030.")

Climeworks’ capture fails to cover its own emissions - https://heimildin.is/grein/24581/ - May 15th, 2025

Carbon capture has a long history. Of failure - https://thebulletin.org/2022/09/plagued-by-failures-carbon-c... - September 1st, 2022

> The entire efficacy of the carbon capture process has been called into question by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In its special report on Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage, the IPCC stated: “CO2 storage is not necessarily permanent. Physical leakage from storage reservoirs is possible via (1) gradual and long-term release or (2) sudden release of CO2 caused by disruption of the reservoir.” Carbon capture has been used as a justification for new oil and gas projects. It has a history of poor performance, only captures a fraction of the total emissions from the lifecycle of oil and gas production and its long-term efficacy is questionable.

The push for recycling has been successful at making people feel better about themselves, not successful at saving energy or raw materials. The article also goes on at length about this, but most of what's put in recycling bins gets thrown out anyways and folks regularly put stuff in recycling bins that can't be recycled, just increasing the cost of recycling programs while lowering their effectiveness. Recycling metal cans and containers is a no brainer, recycling most plastics is of questionable value bordering on actively harmful[1].

[1] https://www.npr.org/2022/10/24/1131131088/recycling-plastic-...