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Scientists create artificial protein that can degrade PET plastics in bottles

phys.org

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Re: Scientists create artificial protein that can degrade PET plastics in bottles

#41

Post by HideousKojima »

convolvatron wrote: post #33
HideousKojima wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason is simple: despite their many problems, plastics are a modern day miracle material. The alternatives I see proposed may match or beat it on one or two factors, but not everything. A viable general replacement for plastic needs to beat plastic on price, weight, durability, sanitation, strength, and so much more.

or we could be willing to trade off some of these factors in order not to befoul our home

Ok, you first. And don't be shocked when people (especially the lower classes) get upset when your efforts to ban plastics lead to meat and produce spoiling much faster and/or costing much more, or lead to shipping costs on common goods increasing significantly, etc.

Re: Scientists create artificial protein that can degrade PET plastics in bottles

#42

Post by Filligree »

lucb1e wrote: post #38
bell-cot wrote: post #8

Major omitted-from-headline limitation: It only works on PET plastic. (AKA "PETE", or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene_terephthalate - recycling number "1" or "01") Quibble: "microplastics in bottles" looks far more like keyword stuffing then a sensible description.

I find the current title much more clear than requiring that people know what PET is. And if you're familiar enough to know what plastic types exist, you probably also realize that this won't be a miracle protein that can tackle a ton of different chemicals with this one innovation/advancement. Unless you're a chemical engineer, I can't think of a place where anyone would need to know what PET is. Bottle returns don'…

Anyone who uses 3D printers would need to know what PET is, not to mention half a dozen other plastics. ;-)

PLA is usually the go-to; it's ideal in nearly every respect except cost, especially its modern formulations. But PETG is still often used for its heat resistance, Polycarbonate is great for physical strength, ASA is lovely for outdoors work, ABS is still the cheapest option... and some people are crazy enough to print Nylon.

Re: Scientists create artificial protein that can degrade PET plastics in bottles

#43

Post by Tagbert »

pcrh wrote: post #34
asow92 wrote: post #12

Microplastics are the "lead/asbestos poisoning" of our generation, and the problem is actually far more dire than either of the former. Someday, we will look back on how we could have ever allowed microplastics into our lives with shock and awe.

I've yet to see any evidence that microplastics are toxic. Plastics are generally inert, and by the time they have broken down into microscopic pieces, most plasticizers have already been leached from the particles. Microplastics are an ugly witness to pollution, but are likely not themselves very harmful.

The base monomers and polymers of PET may not themselves be toxic, but there are plasticizer chemicals added to them to adjust the characteristics that can have biological impacts. Additionally, once the PET starts to break into microplastics, it can attract and accumulate other chemicals that are actually toxic.

Other plastics can be directly toxic, such as styrenes.

Re: Scientists create artificial protein that can degrade PET plastics in bottles

#44

Post by nayuki »

unglaublich wrote: post #18
asow92 wrote: post #12

Microplastics are the "lead/asbestos poisoning" of our generation, and the problem is actually far more dire than either of the former. Someday, we will look back on how we could have ever allowed microplastics into our lives with shock and awe.

Why do we allow burning gigantic storages of carbohydrate fuels while we know full well that the planet's livability suffers from climate change? Why do we allow fueling our energy plants and automobiles with fossil fuels that causes air pollution responsible for 1/5 deaths world wide? [0] Why do we allow one-time use plastics and synthetic tire rubbers while knowing it causes irreversible microplastics pollution of…

> burning gigantic storages of carbohydrate fuels

Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons - they're made up of carbon and hydrogen (and very little oxygen). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrocarbon

Carbohydrate is C + H + oxygen, and generally refers to biological molecules derived from glucose. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbohydrate

Re: Scientists create artificial protein that can degrade PET plastics in bottles

#45

Post by permo-w »

HideousKojima wrote: post #41
convolvatron wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or we could be willing to trade off some of these factors in order not to befoul our home

Ok, you first. And don't be shocked when people (especially the lower classes) get upset when your efforts to ban plastics lead to meat and produce spoiling much faster and/or costing much more, or lead to shipping costs on common goods increasing significantly, etc.

the issue here isn't the wrapping on vital foods. no one is asking for that to be banned. or no one should be anyway. the issue is the wrapping on literally everything else

Re: Scientists create artificial protein that can degrade PET plastics in bottles

#46

Post by jokoon »

I wish hacker news was only about computing and not fringe science news, because unless it's an innovative product and it shows it's a breakthrough, it's probably techno-optimism or it's click-baity.

This applies for everything about batteries, and environmental techs.

The supraconductor crystal news was also quite a revealing event of the problem.

Re: Scientists create artificial protein that can degrade PET plastics in bottles

#48

Post by asow92 »

HideousKojima wrote: post #41
convolvatron wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or we could be willing to trade off some of these factors in order not to befoul our home

Ok, you first. And don't be shocked when people (especially the lower classes) get upset when your efforts to ban plastics lead to meat and produce spoiling much faster and/or costing much more, or lead to shipping costs on common goods increasing significantly, etc.

Have you seen that there is an allowed amount of plastic mixed into animal feed? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/15/legal-pl...

This is about more than sanitary wrapping.

Re: Scientists create artificial protein that can degrade PET plastics in bottles

#49

Post by just_boost_it »

It would be an interesting world if all our plastics started to rot. Water and sewerage piping is mostly plastic, there's heavy uses of plastics in electrical infrastructure, the majority of our containers, many car parts, the bulk of the housings of our electronics, building weatherproofing, most of our clothing... It would be nice to use other materials, but plastics are used because they're cheap, easy to work with, and they work well.

Also, how much plastic has been produced over the last 100 years? It also would have been nice not to have just thrown it all into a landfill, but now that it's there do we really want to release all the CO2 that's been safely locked away underground in solid plastic?

Re: Scientists create artificial protein that can degrade PET plastics in bottles

#50

Post by zackmorris »

I'd like to know who originally put incompatible types of plastic under the same number, which contaminates recycling runs. Like PET/PETE under "1" and injection-molded/blow-molded HDPE under "2":

https://www.warwickri.gov/sanitation-recycling/faq/why-cant-...

Many cities have banned recycling the most commonly used plastics, like plastic water bottles made of 1 (PET). Where I live, 1 and 2 get recycled, 3 (PVC) gets thrown in a landfill and 4-7 get sent to a separate refinery which converts them to diesel fuel.

Not to mention that there seems to be no standard on the legibility of the number.

How many people reading this have thought about automating recycling by having machine learning sort the types? Yet I've never seen "recycling engineer" as a job title. Nor have I seen any grants for improving recycling. Nor any corporations/billionaires making recycling a priority. There have even been TV shows by prominent celebrities pushing propaganda against recycling, like the Penn & Teller: Bullsh*t! episode from the post Dot Bomb luddite era of 2004:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0771119/

We're willing to drink a protein that can degrade plastic before we're willing to hold industry accountable for the waste it produces?

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