"there's mismanaged waste on land all around the planet in informal dump sites. Some waste has been incinerated, some of it commercially, in incinerators that may or may not have appropriate screens and filters to collect associated chemicals that might be released. But of course, a lot is burned in open burning scenarios in countries that are not wealthy enough to own the appropriate waste management facilities to deal with the plastic waste that is exported and by other nations. And then some of it, of course, would have gone into so-called recognized waste management systems, which might include burying it beneath the ground in landfill, where of course it could return to present problems in the future or indeed incinerating it in commercial incinerators. But depending on the quality of the incinerator, of course, there's concerns about the emissions from those incinerators. Burning plastics, whether in backyard fires or industrial incinerators, does not solve the problem. It merely transforms them into a more dangerous form. When heated or burned, large plastic items break down into micro and nano plastics that disperse into the air, settle onto surfaces, and enter water and soil with precipitation. The apparent disappearance of plastic and flames is an illusion. Burning simply accelerates the fragmentation of plastic into the tiniest particles many times over, into the very micro and nano plastics that pose the greatest danger to human health. And it is precisely these electrostatically charged particles that can penetrate deep into the body, including the brain and other cells, where they trigger a wide range of diseases."