If this can scale it seems really encouraging. I worry about the impact of microplastics, and worry that we might have already set off some kind of plastic time bomb and now they're just going to...
If this can scale it seems really encouraging. I worry about the impact of microplastics, and worry that we might have already set off some kind of plastic time bomb and now they're just going to be in everything for centuries.
Even if this does scale, I fear it would fail due to the capitalist nature of society. My hope is that we'll be able to bio-engineer something (bacteria or fungus, probably) that can consume and...
Even if this does scale, I fear it would fail due to the capitalist nature of society.
My hope is that we'll be able to bio-engineer something (bacteria or fungus, probably) that can consume and degrade plastic. I'm no biology expert, but you'd think it would be possible given that plastics are organic.
Lignin (the bio-polymer that gives wood and bark its rigidity and durability), for example, is theorized to have existed for ~50million years before a fungus evolved that could break it down.
Given the tools we already have to control evolution, I wouldn't be surprised if this is "solved" in our lifetime.
"solved" because I'm ignoring every other factor like the potential for plastic to become useless even in places where it's 100% necessary
And we're still burning those trees, that's how much wood piled up before anything other than naturally-occuring fires could break it down. A big problem regarding engineering an organism to eat...
Lignin (the bio-polymer that gives wood and bark its rigidity and durability), for example, is theorized to have existed for ~50million years before a fungus evolved that could break it down.
And we're still burning those trees, that's how much wood piled up before anything other than naturally-occuring fires could break it down.
A big problem regarding engineering an organism to eat plastic, and there are many, is that we've bled plastic pollution into every environment on the planet so a theoretical cleanup-germ would need to be very hardy. That makes it hard to control.
I remember reading a pulpy scifi novel about this back in the 00's. The bacteria got loose and ate all the oil, gasoline, etc. Looked it up: Ill Wind by Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason
I remember reading a pulpy scifi novel about this back in the 00's. The bacteria got loose and ate all the oil, gasoline, etc.
Plastics that can metabolize in oceans are highly sought for a sustainable future. In this work, we report the noncovalent synthesis of unprecedented plastics that are mechanically strong yet metabolizable under biologically relevant conditions owing to their dissociative nature with electrolytes. Salt-bridging sodium hexametaphosphate with di- or tritopic guanidinium sulfate in water forms a cross-linked supramolecular network, which is stable unless electrolytes are resupplied. This unusual stability is caused by a liquid-liquid phase separation that expels sodium sulfate, generated upon salt bridging, into a water-rich phase. Drying the remaining condensed liquid phase yields glassy plastics that are thermally reshapable, such as thermoplastics, and usable even in aqueous media with hydrophobic parylene C coating. This approach can be extended to polysaccharide-based supramolecular plastics that are applicable for three-dimensional printing.
Just a little more context to this story: there isn't just one thing called plastic; we make many different plastics because they have different properties. So regardless of how good or bad this...
Just a little more context to this story: there isn't just one thing called plastic; we make many different plastics because they have different properties. So regardless of how good or bad this product will end up being, it will not ever replace all forms of plastic.
If this can scale it seems really encouraging. I worry about the impact of microplastics, and worry that we might have already set off some kind of plastic time bomb and now they're just going to be in everything for centuries.
Even if this does scale, I fear it would fail due to the capitalist nature of society.
My hope is that we'll be able to bio-engineer something (bacteria or fungus, probably) that can consume and degrade plastic. I'm no biology expert, but you'd think it would be possible given that plastics are organic.
Lignin (the bio-polymer that gives wood and bark its rigidity and durability), for example, is theorized to have existed for ~50million years before a fungus evolved that could break it down.
Given the tools we already have to control evolution, I wouldn't be surprised if this is "solved" in our lifetime.
"solved" because I'm ignoring every other factor like the potential for plastic to become useless even in places where it's 100% necessary
And we're still burning those trees, that's how much wood piled up before anything other than naturally-occuring fires could break it down.
A big problem regarding engineering an organism to eat plastic, and there are many, is that we've bled plastic pollution into every environment on the planet so a theoretical cleanup-germ would need to be very hardy. That makes it hard to control.
And then we need to figure out how to keep it from eating the plastic that we still want. Would be a shame if those car parts were delicious.
I remember reading a pulpy scifi novel about this back in the 00's. The bacteria got loose and ate all the oil, gasoline, etc.
Looked it up: Ill Wind by Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason
I think cars will be the least of our problems if we go down that path.
Medical implants and other medical equipment strike me as even more of a concern
Very good point! Especially given how widespread micro-plastic contamination is across the environment.
Link to research paper:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ado1782
Just a little more context to this story: there isn't just one thing called plastic; we make many different plastics because they have different properties. So regardless of how good or bad this product will end up being, it will not ever replace all forms of plastic.
In other news, Japanese scientists found unalived by apparent suicide. No oil execs were involved.