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Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste

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Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste

#211

Post by varajelle »

catalyst5a wrote: post #149
hajile wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real threat is the nearly 1 trillion tons of toxic waste we're racking up PER YEAR. It's the most lethal stuff this planet has ever encountered. If the CO2 levels spike, life on the planet (including many or maybe even most humans) will survive. If you look at historic levels, they were hundreds of times higher and the planet was the greenest it has ever been. If/when that toxic waste leaks out and starts killing…

I haven’t heard this before. What kinds of toxic waste are you talking about?

Radioactive, dangerous chemical, ...

And the thing is that these are actually harming the people who are near the area where they are disposed, so the harm is more direct. CO2 is more like a global problem, so not as worrisome for the local population.

Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste

#212

Post by formerly_proven »

mrpopo wrote: post #181
flaviut wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good thing we're all rich here, able to move to places with better climates or buy air conditioners, not the billions of poor people who have no way to survive intensifying extreme weather events.

Plastic production worldwide is 300 million tons. I am not sure how this would convert to tons of CO2 as it burns (each carbon in the polymer chain associates with more oxygen in the air so it becomes heavier) but the world's CO2 emissions are 30 billion tons, so this would be in the order of 1 to 3% of the whole world's emissions. Not saying it's good, but burning plastic if it has environmental and health benefits…

> Probably most of it is burned already (it definitely is in Asian countries)

Germany seems to have invented the term "thermal recycling", i.e. burning plastics. IIRC, it is actually considered a renewable energy source by the law.

It's not the worst idea per se, if done right, and waste separation is actually significant here because it simplifies calorific value control.

Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste

#213

Post by donthellbanme »

TameAntelope wrote: post #198
Auracle wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sperm counts have been dropping for a long time (50%-60% over the past 50 years) without stopping, and plasticizers are the suspected culprit. It's incredible how many people need to do IVF now. I would argue that might be the most imminent threat but nobody seems to care.

People should have fewer kids anyway, I see this as an absolute win.

No post body was provided.

Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste

#216

Post by gspr »

varajelle wrote: post #211
catalyst5a wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven’t heard this before. What kinds of toxic waste are you talking about?

Radioactive, dangerous chemical, ... And the thing is that these are actually harming the people who are near the area where they are disposed, so the harm is more direct. CO2 is more like a global problem, so not as worrisome for the local population.

You're still not saying what it is that you're talking about.

Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste

#217

Post by G3rn0ti »

Auracle wrote: post #189
snek_case wrote: post #62

Earlier 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…

Sperm counts have been dropping for a long time (50%-60% over the past 50 years) without stopping, and plasticizers are the suspected culprit. It's incredible how many people need to do IVF now. I would argue that might be the most imminent threat but nobody seems to care.

> Sperm counts have been dropping for a long time

Every couple of years this concern bubbles up. It seems to be established that sperm counts in males are going down. But I’ve yet to see substantial evidence about the possible causes. The effect of plasticisers e.g. were found in animal models usually with rather high doses. An increase of obesity over the last 50 years might also be a likely cause as obesity is linked with hormonal issues. Furthermore, the average age of first time parents has increased significantly. That could also explain why IVF got more popular as sperm counts (and egg „quality“) are age dependent as well.

AFAIK there is no empirical study today proving any link between environmental issues and sperm counts.

Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste

#218

Post by carlmr »

seoaeu wrote: post #38
tda wrote: post #9

Plastic waste should be burned for heat and/or electricity in an incinerator. Every other usage/disposal method seems like a waste to me. Instead of burning fossil fuels directly, we get much more value from them if we first turn it into some plastic product, and only then burn it. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels for heat and power, let's not wate out attention on recycling (downcycling actually) plastics…

Whether we should burn, recycle, or dump plastic into a landfill depends entirely on the relative amount of energy generated and CO2 emitted by those different options. Just because plastic and natural gas both are/come from hydrocarbons doesn’t mean that burning them produces anywhere near the same amount of emissions per MWh, or that the economics would be at all close. And if you are proposing the construction of…

>And if you are proposing the construction of new power plants to burn trash, your justification also has to explain why that would be preferable to building wind/solar instead

An easy to grasp reason is that we still can't viably store energy for long enough periods for wind and solar alone to work. Also solar and wind might not work so well everywhere.

Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste

#219

Post by michaelmrose »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #179
kingkawn wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulation is the way

yeah this seems like something on a scale that's worth regulating, if we stopped now we'd probably still be mitigating the effects 50 years from now

Make a disposable plastic container cost an extra dollar paid at time of manufacture. Double the cost every year. We will be 100% migrated by the end of 2023.

Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste

#220

Post by theptip »

user3939382 wrote: post #171
lotophage wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I've heard that much of the recycling campaigns from the late 80s were actually spearheaded by the plastics industry in what was ultimately a successful attempt to shift blame from the producers to the consumers.

And that a lot of what’s recycled is rejected by industrial manufacturing as unusable and sent to a landfill anyway. I have to admit I don’t know the numbers, but the fact that these issues aren’t more widely discussed makes me suspicious that the popular positive consensus around recycling is the product of marketing and politics which would be par for the course.

This is optimistic - what actually happens is the plastic is shipped to Asia for sorting, where they may put the low quality stuff in landfill, or may just throw it in the nearest river.

Ironically, putting most plastic waste in the landfill bucket is probably more environmentally sound than “recycling” it.

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