I've been hearing this for 20 years.
I assume nothing will happen while this "news" will be used by fossil fuel companies to virtue signal "technological progress" in the plastic problem.
Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
101–110 of 294 posts
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the main problem is that the average Joe/Jane confuses all types of pollution as equally bad. The real, most imminent threat is really CO2. That's what we have to spend the most money/energy on, because it could have absolutely catastrophic consequences in the next few decades. Plastic in a landfill is just... Stuck there. It's unnatural, sure, but it's not immensely harmful, not nearly on the same scale as C…
Quoted post unavailable.
Nuclear fuel must first be mined, correct? That's not renewable and could offset the benefits somewhat. That said I imagine it may be better as a base load than dirty coal.
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#103Depends on what the waste products are and how they are captured, otherwise you trade one problem for another. The plastic takes up space but if it's in a landfill you have carbon capture, best not to release that carbon into the air as CH4 or CO2.
Yeah, landfills are not major environmental problems, AFAIK, but they offend the neat freak within all of us. And, as you say, they're pretty good carbon deposits, which is supposed to be The Most Important Thing.
Or those of us who don't like microplatics in our fish, water, and bodies
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
What would cause them to be an environmental issue? As far as I know they can be built in a safe manner and there is plenty of space for them.
Most landfills contain icky things like heavy metals or arsenic. Having that leak into an aquifer Would Be Bad.
That’s why they’re sealed with clay and plastic and constantly monitored for leakage.
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the Western world maybe, but outside of it... hell even in the Western world we have regular reports of mismanagement and corruption, just look at Italy. We need to reduce the amount of trash we produce, not hope for a miracle technology.
Landfills are not a miracle technology. They exist already and are technologically sound. It’d be way more of a miracle if we somehow managed to greatly reduce waste.
How sustainable are landfills? There's limited land for farming, residences, manufacturing, and everything else we use it for. And trucking trash to deserts to landfill there isn't carbon neutral either. Trash also doesn't breakdown as quickly in covered landfills (for better or worse depending on what one dumps).
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, landfills are not major environmental problems, AFAIK, but they offend the neat freak within all of us. And, as you say, they're pretty good carbon deposits, which is supposed to be The Most Important Thing.
Or those of us who don't like microplatics in our fish, water, and bodies
Those microplastics aren't coming from landfills. They're coming from your everyday interactions with plastic and people dumping plastic in rivers and oceans.
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the Western world maybe, but outside of it... hell even in the Western world we have regular reports of mismanagement and corruption, just look at Italy. We need to reduce the amount of trash we produce, not hope for a miracle technology.
Landfills are not a miracle technology. They exist already and are technologically sound. It’d be way more of a miracle if we somehow managed to greatly reduce waste.
People love to "what if" landfills. Best to not bother arguing with them. We have tons of problems with emissions, plastics pollution, industrial dumping. However landfills ain't one of them, but people won't give up. I've learned to not bother discussing anything with them if they don't know a few basics of how modern landfills are run (at least in western nations).
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quoted post unavailable.
Nuclear fuel must first be mined, correct? That's not renewable and could offset the benefits somewhat. That said I imagine it may be better as a base load than dirty coal.
We’re not running out of fissionable material any time soon
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
What would be really cool is if we got something that could eat plastic and produce as a waste product some environmentally neutral substance like (say) some kind of alcohol. Is there anything like that on the horizon?
Please define environmentally neutral. Because alcohol will just oxidize into water and CO2. Do you want to just sequester the Carbon? Something very environmentally neutral would be .... plastic. Anything biodegradable would eventually become CO2 and water. Best option is to burn it and capture the energy for a useful purpose, instead of letting that energy be wasted when it biodegrades.
Can plastic combustion be done with releasing CO2 into the atmosphere? Or worse chemicals?
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldn't go that far. > Per the most recent Inventory Report, U.S. landfills released an estimated 109.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) of methane into the atmosphere in 2020; this represents 16.8 percent of the total U.S. anthropogenic methane emissions across all sectors. https://www.epa.gov/lmop/frequent-questions-about-landfill-g... .
Sure. That's almost all due to food waste, though. FWIW. https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-management-food/sustainable-...
Yes, for that reason Santa Clara County (Silicon Valley) is pushing hard to divert food waste out of the garbage and get it composted instead: it's supposed to go in with yard waste, not the regular trash. Not sure how successful this is as it counts on people putting things in the correct bin.