While it's a great discovery, I'm concerned that this will be abused by plastic manufacturers as an excuse to produce more plastics and talk about "how harmless" plastics are as "they break down organically by fungi" anyway.
I'm more worried about the longterm. As organisms get better at breaking down plastic manufacturers will start putting nasty chemicals in plastics to prevent premature breakdown.
That’s why we need increased government oversight of corporate behavior in general. Fingers crossed this becomes politically feasible as younger generations enter a greater position of power. I have hope that these externalities can be solved as long as the root cause of unregulated money chasing is addressed.
The problem is that younger generations are just as impressionable as previous ones, but now they have a surveillance state and advertising apperatus aimed squarely at them.
So now young men are pissed at the world for being not a fairyland like they were promised, and are getting absolutely riled up by grifters who are the first step in the right wing recruitment funnel and now millions of young men think the reason the world sucks is women, immigrants, and having emotions.
As long as it's not an efficient process then you have a point. But, let's say some very efficient way to clean up and break down plastic was discovered. Then, wouldn't the manufacturers actually have a point? In that case it indeed would be harmless and we could enjoy the conveniences of it while being relatively certain we can then dispose of it safely. So you wouldn't call it an "abuse" in this case.
Just because a fungus eventually breaks it down doesn't imply that it's "harmless". It can (and does) still accumulate in organisms and has many undesirable effects, including the human body. It can s easily end up in the food chain as long as it's not broken down, including areas where the fungus is not effective, which are plenty.
The only difference such a fungus can make is that it could break down in certain pockets in nature in the long run.
Yes, I see your point here. I think most objections to plastic including my own are about the longevity of its effects on ecosystems, but local, short term effects on health are equally problematic.
The article talks about how this one fungus found in the depths of the sea can break down PE (polyethylene) plastics. The biggest problem with combating ocean plastic is deployment of any solution. The seas are vast and trash, while a huge problem, is still relatively sparse within them.
It would be great to see if this fungus can be deployed on land at large enough scale to take care of, say, a whole regions PEs. That way we could get somewhere.
So, like, how do you imagine fungi could turn the plastic back into oil and down into the crust? Is your line of inquiry possibly, actually worthwhile?
> Do you get the sense that the plastic manufacturers are limiting production in any whatsoever now?
More and more stuff I buy, especially from higher end brands, comes packaged in purely cardboard packaging with no plastic. Not even tape or plastic bits to hold it together. They even brag about this in some of their marketing.
Paper is nice because you can put the packaging in either recycling or compost depending which bin has more space that week.
While I see your point and without defending the lackluster recycling culture in America, filling landfills with paper products is still better than plastic products, no?
Yes this is strictly better. I’m saying it’s a good thing that more things come packaged in cardboard than plastic these days and I’m highlighting that this is a growing trend especially in high-end products because those consumers care more
The most effective sequestration is to store carbon underground where it can't diffuse. The simplest way to put things underground is as a fluid. Some kind of fluid that's pure carbon. This pretty much just brings us back to pumping oil in reverse.
I guess I just see it as something with the potential to biodegrade within my lifetime as opposed to many many lifetimes in the future. I’m no climate scientist, genuinely curious if that mentality is incorrect or not.
We use bees wax paper and cloth in the house instead of cling film/plastic wrap and baggies.
Its easily washable and reuesable, everyone should use it and there would be a lot less plastic waste.
Unfortunately the consumer is the only one who can influence the manufacturers by choosing alternatives. Large companies rarely actually care about the environmental effects when they have a cheaper alternative.
I think many underestimate the influence consumers can have on the manufacturers. In some product categories, they have an option to choose a better alternative. If more did that, the manufacturers in other industries would see that there is a first mover advantage where they can grow their market share by reducing plastic usage. More R&D would be spent finding alternatives and the world as a whole would be improved.
But it all starts with us choosing alternatives whenever possible. If enough consumers do that, the other manufacturers will improve because it impacts their revenue.
As I mentioned, the manufacturers will need to spend money on R&D to develop alternatives. Right now the tire manufacturers don't have any incentive because there's no financial benefit.
Even though consumers don't have a choice when they buy tires today, other products have cleaner alternatives. If I was a manufacturer of tires and saw consumers consistently choosing cleaner products when possible, I would have an incentive to see if I could reduce the pollution, because I would gain market share. The first manufacturer would sell more tires and others would need to follow. Not enough consumers make this choice today to make up the cost of new technologies.
Theres no need for R&D. Real rubber tyres are environmentally friendly as the abrasion particles are natural. They are much better performing in terms of grip, but just more expensivce to produce.
IIRC the military use real rubber tyres still because of their longer life and better performance.
If people were willing to pay more for their tyres then this would be a non issue.
Pure natural rubber has poor ozone resistance. It will need stabilizing additives, and at least one of these (6PPD) has been found to have toxicity problems.
In a well functioning country, regulation is one of the best ways to control this.
Better regulation would force the manufacturers to spend R&D on alternatives and push down the prices so that the rest of the world can also afford a cleaner alternative. Even if that takes time, we would at least have a huge reduction until we have the right tech at an affordable price for the developing world.
The world is a huge place and many countries will never have good regulations due to corruption/lobbyists and continue to pollute. The only way I see regulations would work is if the first world governments, which are the largest consumers, were willing to impose import restrictions, but that would go against the ideology behind the global market. It would also risk retaliation where the affected country could block exports of rare earth minerals and other critical resources.
The US market is one of the largest influencers, and would need to get on board. I'm not an American, but given the political climate in the US right now I doubt they could regulate it effectively.
As I understand it, lead in gasoline was used for motor longetivity, but other approaches have been invented to reduce pollution. So now we use only (or just mostly?) unleaded gasoline, which is used basically the same as leaded.
What's your microplastic-free alternative to replace most uses of plastic? Microplasticless plastic that would work for all plastic use cases doesn't exist, as far I know.
You don't need a one-size-fits-all solution to all problems at once. But most plastic use have alternative solutions, if you are willing to change industrial practices (plastic-less supply chains will look very different for instance).
There are, and we do use them, more and more every day (from my simple consumer point of view), but it's much more difficult to dictate that "everyone" must switch to non-microplastic solutions, like it seems to have been possible with gasoline.
What would that kind of legislation look like? It would be bound be huge, have negative non-intended consequences, and loopholes.
Maybe a global plastic tax could function as a guiding force, but even that has the negative consequence increasing the costs of stuff that just doesn't have alternatives. It would funnel money towards developing plastic-free products.
But getting everyone onboard with that is difficult—and I presume it's difficult to put a fair plastic tax for imported products.
This is an argument that comes again and again when discussing government intervention and really baffles me: don't you laissez-faire guys really don't realize that a “loophole” is still much tinier than a completely open door?!
Loophole can be small, but when exploited properly, an elephant can walk right through it. And you also chose to ignore the part about unintended consequences..
All it really takes to even consider moving into this direction is to propose a solution to this. "Stop plastic" is not it due to practical reasons. I wouldn't know what a proper solution would be, nor would I have the expertice to recognize one when proposed, but is there even a realistic proposal?
The problem is plastic is not one thing but an entire category of materials. There are plenty of places plastics can be designed out but there's also an awful lot where it's never going to be possible to replace. For example operating rooms have huge trash bins because everything comes plastic wrapped for sterility.
Even in ORs, there are options for using less plastic use. For example, drapes can be single-use (paper-lined plastic in a plastic pouch) or fabric (wrapped in more fabric and autoclaved).
I agree that getting to zero plastic is probably impossible—-it has amazingly useful properties for some applications—-but it’s also used for convenience and other mundane reasons (e.g., less liability if you offload sterilization to the manufacturer).
Nope. Tetra-Ethyl lead as a fuel additive, primarily for octane boosting, was invented as a "cheaper alternative" to what would normally be used to boost octane: Ethanol. Surely for only coincidental reasons, having a chemical product that they could patent and prevent anyone else from manufacturing made them a whole lot more money than using Ethanol which anyone could make and market and compete.
Leaded gas was a fucking profit motivated thing.
The point of us putting ethanol in gas is multifaceted, but not even remotely about climate change: The octane booster we used after we removed was MTBE. MTBE had a problem where it would constantly leak out of fuel storage and poison families, cause birth defects, you know, toxic shit. So we FINALLY just said fuck it, put ethanol in gas like we should have been doing since the 20s.
Other effects it had: Immediately reduce US gasoline usage by 10%. Subsidy to farmers.
But in a lot of other places, they're far cheaper than the supermarkets. It works the other way sometimes, and I think we need to examine why. My best off-the-cuff theory to it would be some sort of perverse government incentive.
The same government that makes incentives that added all that extra driving, transportation, storage, packaging, etc to the "natural food" because they think farming and storing livestock within X-feet of a people-zoned area is dangerous and shouldn't be allowed. Next they complain "oh lets fix these food islands that we created in the first place" or "oh please let us regulate these evil companies that use so much bad plastic packaging because we told them not to sell food that "might" be off after expiry so they have to use plastic and other such devices to sell you absolutely pristine and non-contaminated food".
The point in my rambling is that it's such a complicated problem, but the government sits at the heart of it. Both as a cause and a potential solution, unfortunately.
I'm more concerned with whether it may start spreading beyond the ocean and causing pandemic-scale damage, although fortunately it seems slow. There is already dystopian sci-fi about similar themes.
Considering how plastic manufacturers turned recycling into the ultimate false hope, I agree with you. I try to be mindful about my plastic consumption but it is everywhere.
