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
#2Neat. Hope it can scale and soon!
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#3Even 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 may work in a lab, but I doubt they can turn it into an industrial process.
I take issue with this:
"The most common method for disposing of plastic, besides throwing it in a landfill, is to burn it, which is costly, energy intensive and spews noxious gas into the air."
This is utterly false, and I don't see how they can claim to be scientific if they publish falsehoods. It makes me wonder about the accuracy of the rest of the press release.
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#4So, uh, what are the CO2 emissions like on eating that much sequestered carbon?
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#5Even 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…
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Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#6So, uh, what are the CO2 emissions like on eating that much sequestered carbon?
What would be really cool is if we got something that could eat plastic and produce as a waste product some environmentally neutral substance like (say) some kind of alcohol. Is there anything like that on the horizon?
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#7I’ve read this headline monthly since the 90s.
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#8Even 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…
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Exactly. Everyone thinks there will be black smoke, but actually plastic burns very clean in a proper incinerator.
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#9Plastic 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 as we can much better burn the old and make fresh new plastic from the fossil fuels we didn't have to burn because of that.
When we are not relying on fossil fuels anymore for heat and power (which is hopefully sooner than later), only then we need to start looking into plastic recycling
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#10I remember reading about this in middle school.