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There was a Doomwatch episode on his subject with airliners falling out of the sky bcause all the plastic had been eaten away. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomwatch#Series_One
Maybe the only thing more worrisome than microplastics everywhere is unstoppable plastics eating organisms everywhere, eating through all plastics everywhere.
Why is that worrisome? Might give the fish a chance whose bellies are filling up with plastic rubbish
Maybe the only thing more worrisome than microplastics everywhere is unstoppable plastics eating organisms everywhere, eating through all plastics everywhere.
Maybe the only thing more worrisome than microplastics everywhere is unstoppable plastics eating organisms everywhere, eating through all plastics everywhere.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s a fantastically silly but fun book about this the name of which eludes me.
Mutant 59: The Plastic Eaters, a 1971 British sci-fi environmental disaster novel written by medical scientist Kit Pedler and television screenwriter Gerry Davis. No wikipedia page, but goodreads has it here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/99852816-mutant-59
Maybe the only thing more worrisome than microplastics everywhere is unstoppable plastics eating organisms everywhere, eating through all plastics everywhere.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Usually these bioengineered yeasts need pretty specific growth conditions in order to eat in this case ethylene glycol, not raw finished plastic. In this case they say "plastic-derived substrates" which means they're pre-processing the waste plastic.
Good thing microorganisms are famous for their slow rate of change in dynamic environments…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good thing microorganisms are famous for their slow rate of change in dynamic environments…
I'm not sure what this adds. The yeast here is chomping ethylene glycol for carbon, and tons of soil bacteria can already do that. And I should add that highly specialized industrial/lab yeasts have existed for a long time and aren't prevalent in the environment, they just don't like to grow outside of narrow(ish) conditions. Highly prevalent wild yeasts tend to eat a variety of sugars, not glycol.
you, yes you, area "biomass compound", well maybe not quite yet, but soon, as these things go, but most definitly every last putrid smelly horrible thing is a "biomass compound", and when you add in plastic we are talking about most of the stuff found in millions of dumpsters, and most of the stuff actualy in dumps, or sewers.
This then solves the whole issue of what is allowed to go in which can or bin, which is anything you cant get money for or find someone who will hall it away for free.
I am very very sure that volunteers will soon show up wishing to "return to the great nutrient cycle"
but there is nothing to worry about as I am positive that everything will be tested and cynicly proven to be safe for human consumption
Honestly at this point I think the way to go may be to stop using plastics where they're not absolutely required, and to subsequently burn what goes into landfill while producing electricity and reclaiming heat. Better that than this.