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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

#221

Post by gman83 »

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.

For decades plastic was sent to East Asia to be "recycled" but recently even those countries have refused to import it. Since then we've seen western governments freaking about about plastic waste.

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

#222

Post by chaostheory »

theptip wrote: post #220
user3939382 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is exactly how the great Pacific garbage patch was formed, since the rivers will eventually empty into the oceans.

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

#223

Post by fritztastic »

BurningFrog wrote: post #52
not2b wrote: post #44

Depends 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.

The US sends millions of tons of trash to China, India, and other places. Perhaps it would be better for places to implement local sorting (glass, plastic, paper, etc.) and composting- as many other nations do as opposed to disposing of all trash in the same containers and shipping the problem off for someone else to deal with. But even better would be to generate less trash in the first place or at least have an attempt at transitioning to using biodegradable packaging. Packaging, which also is excessive and unecessary in the first place, like items in layers of plastic casing, plastic boxes, plastic wrapping, and so on when there are ways of distributing goods without convenient prepackaging in favor of instead refilling reusable containers or utilizing materials such as fabric, glass, or others which can be repurposed and reused more flexibly and reliably than plastic.

Not even going to get into plastics being contaminated by toxic things and leeching chemicals. Landfills are not harmless to ecosystems and aquifers, either- they're a short term way of not dealing with the issue of waste materials, at best.

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

#224

Post by fredrikholm »

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.

Large majority of developed countries are below replacement rates, so there's no need to gloat in the suffering and pain of people who can't have children.

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

#225

Post by fritztastic »

The US sends millions of tons of trash to China, India, and other places. Perhaps it would be better for places to implement local sorting (glass, plastic, paper, etc.) and composting- as many other nations do as opposed to disposing of all trash in the same containers and shipping the problem off for someone else to deal with. But even better would be to generate less trash in the first place or at least have an attempt at transitioning to using biodegradable packaging. Packaging, which also is excessive and unecessary in the first place, like items in layers of plastic casing, plastic boxes, plastic wrapping, and so on when there are ways of distributing goods without convenient prepackaging in favor of instead refilling reusable containers or utilizing materials such as fabric, glass, or others which can be repurposed and reused more flexibly and reliably than plastic.

Not even going to get into plastics being contaminated by toxic things, leaching chemicals, microplastics, affecting acquatic life, a variety of other problems relating to plastics and excessive plastic waste.

I really wish people would push to decrease the production and use of plastics in the first place, seems more sustainable than trying to engineer solutions at the tail end of the issue. Seems to me much more effective to curtail the source of the problem than to attempt to implement solutions later on although I do appreciate that some people see the issue and are working to do something about it.

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

#226

Post by vletal »

shafkathullah wrote: post #214

Been hearing these news for some years now, what's still blocking it from going mainstream?

Given our history of creating solutions to problems and dealing with side-effects later, I'd love to first see plenty of research explaining how is this not gonna go out of hand in a few years.

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

#227

Post by mellavora »

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.

Just to remind everyone, the decline in sperm count is across species, not just in humans.

So while yes, for people it may be less of an issue, the same cannot be said for wildlife, where it becomes another nail in the extinction coffin.

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

#228

Post by phtrivier »

michaelmrose wrote: post #219
micromacrofoot wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Someone will have to mandate the price of something. That sounds an awful lot like a "regulation", doesn't it ?

Also, ironically, if you start regulating it (bannings plastics straws, disposable packaging, etc...) you'll get trashed on twitter _by_ the most ardent environmentalist, (and mocked by comedians) because it is "obviously not on the scale of the problem and just green washing that is not going to help anything vote for us instead."

(source : this is what the EU is doing, and everyone is making fun of them.)

Whereas if you develop a techno enzyme to eat the plastic and sell it expensively, you'll get your bonus.

_shrug_

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

#230

Post by NonNefarious »

shafkathullah wrote: post #214

Been hearing these news for some years now, what's still blocking it from going mainstream?

We're also still waiting for graphene to solve all of our problems.

Oh, and why are we still waiting on this: https://phys.org/news/2010-02-spray-on-liquid-glass-revoluti...

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