Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

phys.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 329 posts

Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

#101

Post by pcrh »

Chris86 wrote: post #90
Goronmon wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the biggest issue people have with landfills is that it's basically banking on the things being dumped there not having an adverse effect on the environment, ground water, etc over a long period of time. Even if no one really knew/knows/ensures what is entirely safe to dump.

Yeah, I'm not sure why anyone would think burying waste underground is an okay solution. It made sense when most household waste was fabrics, wood, old food etc but nobody stopped quick enough to evaluate the impacts when our waste got more and more toxic and non-biodegradable. I've recently move to the Netherlands from the UK and was amazed to discover they don't recycle household metal items (e.g. soft drinks cans,…

Well... the Dutch are very enthusiastic for more landfills, I gather.

Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

#102

Post by Chris86 »

Namrog84 wrote: post #100
Chris86 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm not sure why anyone would think burying waste underground is an okay solution. It made sense when most household waste was fabrics, wood, old food etc but nobody stopped quick enough to evaluate the impacts when our waste got more and more toxic and non-biodegradable. I've recently move to the Netherlands from the UK and was amazed to discover they don't recycle household metal items (e.g. soft drinks cans,…

Depending upon the facility. Some places do quite a bit of sorting on trash. Especially things like metals. While they don't have a separate bin. They might still filter or export some components to be recycled?

In many places in Europe consumers separate their waste themselves prior to collection, Holland included. Any waste that hasn't been separated and is just in a rubbish sack and presumed to be non-recyclable and buried without being opened or sorted. The metal cans in Holland end up in the rubbish sacks and are buried forever along with non-recyclable plastics, food waste, nappies etc

Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

#103

Post by xutopia »

ars wrote: post #42

It makes sense that eventually things would eat plastic. Lignin (wood) and cellulose are pretty tough to break down, but there are things that eat them. Plastic fundamentally (chemically) is made of the same stuff as wood, just in a different arrangement of atoms, and releases energy when decomposed. So it seems quite reasonable that there would be things that can eat it. I think the plastic pollution we are seeing r…

I forget where I heard or read this but for something like millions of years wood and other plant materials was not broken down by anything at all as there were no animals to eat away at them.

Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

#104

Post by cortesoft »

goatlover wrote: post #65
tuna-piano wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, for one, have never understood the problem with landfills. There's tons of unused space left, and landfills take up a tiny fraction of that. Who cares if we make a trash hill somewhere and styrofoam sits there for a million years?

The bigger problem is everything that doesn't make it into the landfill, particularly the plastics that get into the water. The oceans have tons of plastic breaking down into smaller pieces that fish and birds and eat.

But how will these caterpillars help with that issue?

Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

#106

Post by sqeaky »

gph wrote: post #46
Stanleyc23 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"If a single enzyme is responsible for this chemical process, its reproduction on a large scale using biotechnological methods should be achievable" If they're right about the enzyme then the threat is possible. It's different from organisms that eat wood because we are pretty good at mass producing stuff.

We're pretty good at mass producing bombs. Hasn't ended civilization yet. Dropping a bunch of plastic eating enzymes won't be more effective...

Bombs aren't distributed by tiny self-reproducing nano-machines that outnumber humans a trillion to one.

A bacteria making an enzyme that allows it to gain nutrition from plastic would certainly be an interesting problem for humanity. I cannot say if it would be doomsday level or a minor inconvenience, but neither can easily be disregarded because there is no precedent.

Wood is not a good example because nature has had nearly a billion years to figure out an efficient way to reclaim the energy in wood and the closest it got is slow fungal process. This is why when we make wood structures we paint them or treat the wood with fungicides.

Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

#107

Post by Chris86 »

pcrh wrote: post #101
Chris86 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm not sure why anyone would think burying waste underground is an okay solution. It made sense when most household waste was fabrics, wood, old food etc but nobody stopped quick enough to evaluate the impacts when our waste got more and more toxic and non-biodegradable. I've recently move to the Netherlands from the UK and was amazed to discover they don't recycle household metal items (e.g. soft drinks cans,…

Well... the Dutch are very enthusiastic for more landfills, I gather.

I guess it doesn't help that 1/3 of the country is below sea level...nowhere to dig

Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

#108

Post by fpgaminer »

douche wrote: post #79
tuna-piano wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, for one, have never understood the problem with landfills. There's tons of unused space left, and landfills take up a tiny fraction of that. Who cares if we make a trash hill somewhere and styrofoam sits there for a million years?

My problem with landfills is that it's so inefficient. Particularly for things like wood waste or construction demolition, it makes a lot more sense to grind it, burn it, and make power from it, then bury the much smaller amount of ash that is left over.

It's better for the environment to bury wood unburnt. Burning it will release carbon back into the atmosphere. Burying the tree will re-sequester the carbon.

As for grinding it, that's a question of whether the space saved by grinding up the wood is worth it versus just digging/finding a bigger hole.

Post reply on HN