And then this escapes and starts to eat plastics in cars and other durable goods thus rendering increased near term maintenance costs across a large number of industries.... just a thought.
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
#62Depends 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.
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 CO2, and realistically, in the future, we'll be able to mine it out of there and refine it into something usable if we need it.
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#63Dumb question, but if plastic eating bacteria starts spreading, wouldn't we all be in a lot of trouble?
Will car plastic interior start to rot?
Will PET soda and water bottles start decomposing in the grocery store, and will they require refrigeration to prevent that?
Will our computer keyboards require new materials?
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#64Even smarter would be to take that plastic and burn it for energy, instead of giving that energy to an enzyme, that will just make waste heat. After reading the article instead of the headline: They imply they can turn the plastic back into a monomer and then rebuild it as a new polymer. Maybe that would work, but I have huge doubts - a monomer is very chemically active, and it really wants to polymerize. That enzyme…
https://no-burn.org and others.. incinerator waste to energy has been a battle for at least fifty years..
Another organization we can blame for terrible environmental outcomes?
Why is it so common for people to pretend to be environmentalists and advocate for things that directly harm the environment?
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#65having done some research on this topic, the problem is not what goes into the landfills.. the problems are in the plastics that do not make it into the landfills, the production of the plastics, and the over-dependence on single-use plastics since the era of the Bic-Pen
The phrase “single use” is doing some heavy lifting there, and I have no idea why that particular product is made to be patient zero for this.
A pen presumably gets hundreds or thousands of uses, depending on how you count. For example, one way product packaging is much more of a single use plastic.
That being said, I’d hate to lose plastics for bulk food packaging, unless there’s an equally food safe successor.
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#66Who else things of "Grey Goo"
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#67Earlier 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.
> Yeah, landfills are not major environmental problems ... yet?
Is there enough raw material on earth for landfills to become major environmental problems? (genuinely curious)
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#68Depends 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.
I would infinitely rather have a bit more gaseous carbon than a 10,000 year source of endocrine disruptor microplastics leaching into the water.
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#69Even smarter would be to take that plastic and burn it for energy, instead of giving that energy to an enzyme, that will just make waste heat. After reading the article instead of the headline: They imply they can turn the plastic back into a monomer and then rebuild it as a new polymer. Maybe that would work, but I have huge doubts - a monomer is very chemically active, and it really wants to polymerize. That enzyme…
Which part is false? There is at least one part of that statement that is absolutely true.
The only part that is true is that burning is the most common method, with recycling being a close third.
> which is costly
Burning is not costly it is cheaper than all other methods. It's so cheap it's actually profitable.
> energy intensive
It actually provides extra energy, and reduces energy waste (because now we have to pump less oil.)
> and spews noxious gas into the air.
It spews nothing except water and CO2.
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't the problem with plastic burning the fact that most plastic waste is actually contaminated with food/non-plastics that burn differently?
Yes. I see quite a few three letter accounts advocating for burning plastic. Let them throw some in their fireplace of the chimnea while relaxing with the family and see how that goes.
Industrial waste incineration is not at all the same thing as burning trash in a backyard fire.