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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

#51

Post by unglaublich »

testfoobar wrote: post #29
unglaublich wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The underlying cause of climate change, air pollution and waterways full of plastic waste is the Tragedy of the Commons. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/climate-ch... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

Yep. We should have forced mining and oil companies to pay opportunity costs to our future self whenever they extract finite resources from the planet.

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

#52

Post by no_moms_no_hugs »

just_boost_it wrote: post #49

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 wit…

Plastics are largely cheap because they're bi-products of natural gas, gasoline and diesel fuel manufacturing. As demand for those fuels declines, plastics will necessarily become more expensive.

They certainly have a lot of inherent utility, but given the emerging risks to the planet's ecology and our own health, I think it's hard to see a future where we extensively use plastics to the same extent we do now.

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

#53

Post by no_moms_no_hugs »

unglaublich wrote: post #51
testfoobar wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The underlying cause of climate change, air pollution and waterways full of plastic waste is the Tragedy of the Commons. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/climate-ch... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

Yep. We should have forced mining and oil companies to pay opportunity costs to our future self whenever they extract finite resources from the planet.

The challenge is that those costs were not understood when these extractive heavy industries were stood up, and large parts of our legal and governance systems were set up to ensure that those industries could exist, presumably to enrich all of us (e.g., the mineral rights system). By the time the costs were understood, the owners of those industries had accrued enough capital from their operation to actively fight off challenges to them for decades.

The tragedy is obvious, but I think it's an important example as we move forward with other dramatic and potentially disastrous technological changes. What happens if we discover conclusively in 15 years that observing recommendation-algorithm driven social media for more than an hour a day causes dementia? Would we move quickly to ban it, or would we endure a protracted fight with Meta, TikTok et. al. about our "right to scroll" while the damages accrue?

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

#54

Post by slt2021 »

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

who is going to pay for that?

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

#55

Post by bell-cot »

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'…

Okay - "Scientists create artificial protein that can degrade a very common type of plastic".

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

#56

Post by sholladay »

no_moms_no_hugs wrote: post #52
just_boost_it wrote: post #49

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 wit…

Plastics are largely cheap because they're bi-products of natural gas, gasoline and diesel fuel manufacturing. As demand for those fuels declines, plastics will necessarily become more expensive. They certainly have a lot of inherent utility, but given the emerging risks to the planet's ecology and our own health, I think it's hard to see a future where we extensively use plastics to the same extent we do now.

I’d love to get a sense of how much less plastic will be made - or how much more it will cost - as renewable energy and electric vehicles replace fossil fuels. Has someone modeled this?

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

#58

Post by aranchelk »

jdiff wrote: post #23
jdawg777 wrote: post #22

We should stop focusing on recycling plastics and invest in garbage incinerators/power plants.

More CO2 and a lovely cocktail of toxic gases, this doesn't sound like the elegant solution you're phrasing it as.

Search "waste to energy Sweden". It's not perfect, but they have emissions standards and they do filtration.

It's probably significantly better than pretending to recycle the stuff and then burning fuel to ship it somewhere else.

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

#59

Post by dang »

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.

Ok, we've s/micro/PET /'d the title above. Thanks!

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

#60

Post by dang »

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'…

I tried "Scientists create protein that can degrade a common plastic in bottles" as well but I think it's ok to say "PET" even if few people know what it is. It's implicit that it's (a) not all plastics and (b) the article will say what it is.
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