When a microbe was found munching on a plastic bottle in a rubbish dump, it promised a recycling revolution. Now scientists are attempting to turbocharge those powers in a bid to solve our waste crisis. But will it work?
When a microbe was found munching on a plastic bottle in a rubbish dump, it promised a recycling revolution. Now scientists are attempting to turbocharge those powers in a bid to solve our waste crisis. But will it work?
Who knows what its consequences are? How about a simpler approach, like reducing plastic use maybe instead of some pie in the sky project?
That’s why they’re doing research genius
Both is good, but even stopping all plastic today and picking up every piece of trash we can grab with our hands won’t clean up the microplastics that are already in the environment.
With how heavily integrated plastics are into EVERYTHING in our society, I think that’s not necessarily the “simpler” approach, even if I agree that it’s vital.
Mfw the bacteria evolve to turn plastic into methane 🔥 💀 🔥
As if the micro plastics crisis hasn’t already made the “pie in the sky” solution a necessity at this point
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Paper bags are worse, except maybe for microplastics. But they take more resources to create, and aren’t as recyclable as good plastic bags. You can use a canvas bag, but that takes even more resources to create. So you have to use the same canvas bag for years
The most ideal situation is if we archieve 100% recycling.
In reality no thing can disappear, both matter and energy just change form. We only need to look at nature for proof that 100% reusing matter and energy is feasible. Even our “waste” wasn’t wasted.
These microbes are yet another key in the puzzle to obtain the next breakthrough. Once we master industrial chains with full conservation of matter and energy the cost of creating things will become negligible.
We do probably want both. Even if we end plastic production completely tomorrow, we need to work out a way to clean up all the plastic we’ve already dumped all over the world