i am sure it will be “too expensive” for the next 30 to 40 years.
Much more likely that no company wants to use it no matter how much it costs because it degrades. We use plastic as a packing material specifically because it doesn’t degrade and lasts forever.
On the other hand, many of the things packaged in plastic also degrade, and might be fine for their safe shelf life in either biodegradable plastic or a container with that type of lining. Other liquids could be packaged in glass.
The issue isn’t material choice. It’s that plastic can’t be replaced by most materials because of the current function of our containers.
Let me pitch it like this: go to the grocery store. It’s all plastic. The meat? Plastic container. Milk is in plastic. Water in plastic. They’ll even put your potatoes in a pre-packaged plastic sack.
So the issue is that plastic has made its entire niche and therefore is irreplaceable in that niche. Whereas if we would swap over to reusable milk containers and dispensers or refillable chip bags, we’d be miles ahead even if those were all made of plastic still.
The problem isn’t containers, it’s the existence of disposable packing being the only option.
Why do potatoes need to be wrapped in plastic at all?
Yeah, people forget that form follows function.
The parameters for making a USEFUL plastic that ALSO degrades gives a narrow band. Too degradable, and the function of fulfilling all the areas plastic is currently used for can’t happen. Not degradable, and we have the current situation.
Plastic being is in use not simply to fuck the planet over or something, but because compared to other materials it has physical qualities that things like glass, wood, fabric, etc. don’t have, that’s why it’s ended up in so many things. It’s lightweight, strong, and “plastic” (that is to say, more easily shaped and molded than other materials, and I suspect there’s a labor component too where maybe it needs less labor to shape and form).
I’m eventually going to write a story about a sci-fi world that’s under quarantine because they successfully made a plastic-eating bacteria that never stops eating and breaking down plastic. Go there and most of your technology/clothes/etc. are eaten away. I might throw in wood, too…a world with no wood or plastic because the local bacteria is like, “Yum, yum, food!” and gets into every nook and cranny. I anticipate I’ll have to do a lot of thinking to figure out how drastically technology would change under these parameters…I imagine a lot of it would be very “brutalist” because you’d have to rely on heavy-as-balls metals and cement and stone and such. Unless there’s an Aluminum Future or something, where everything that can be made out of aluminum, can. Of course, there’s also the byproducts of intense metals mining to think about on a fictional world like that. Anyway, lots of details to pick apart for worldbuilding.
Don’t forget how it would mess with medical care, given how much medical equipment, especially things like gloves and masks that keep the doctors safe, are plastic.
Yes, depends on what’s the behavior of just sitting around outside, getting rained on a bit, sitting in a humid warehouse, exposed to bugs and rodents.
If hypothetically it only breaks down if shredded and mixed into compost, then it may be interesting. However in such a case you’d likely struggle to reliably identify and segregate it from the rest of the plastic waste stream to apply this special treatment without putting bad plastic into the mix.
Especially for packing would be good if it degrades after a determined time. That and bottles.
bingo. ive heard of many of these biodegradable plastics and the main problem is shelf life.
honestly we should go back to CANS in many things. its a solution that has been staring us at the face.
Same people, they’ve been making biodegradable footwear for a bit now.
Why bother with that? If you need shoes to dissolve, regardless of the materials, just subject them to my foot sweat for a few months.
Until get externalities of plastic on to the up front cost. We kind of did it on plastic bags in the UK.
We have a lot of options for materials that completely decompose. The challenge is materials that only decompose when you want them to, and not while theyre sitting on store shelves
That doesn’t sound like a problem but a feature. We love new shiny things and wasting things.
I think if we find materials that breakdown in a useful way, it creates an incentive to make use of those products that have a shelf life. But more importantly creating a waste product that is beneficial.
I didn’t know if the material science is there yet. But we need to figure out the best way to use these new materials to change industries.
If we can make something profitable, other people will do the hard part of adopting it and getting it out there.
My work produces sooo much waste. More than all of the staff combined will ever produce. And thats just my branch. We have hundreds of branches and being where we are in canada, we put some of the most amount of effort into recycling. Because its law, not because the company is willing to sacrifice profit by spending resources on anything that doesnt produce value in dollars.
We are small fry, and we arent in a monopoly
I think if we find materials that breakdown in a useful way, it creates an incentive to make use of those products that have a shelf life. But more importantly creating a waste product that is beneficial.
Cardboard. It composts well.
I go through more cardboard than garbage. It’s not useful for many packaging or shipping solutions
Right, generally whenever fluids or outdoor exposure is a concern. Because it decomposes.
In not sure what point you are making. But ill clarify that i was only trying to show that i did take the use of cardboard into consideration when i have the opinion i did.
That may not help or already be understood.
I dont know what happening
We have cardboard and paper for when you want packaging to eventually decompose. And plastic for when you dont want it to. Which is why no decomposable alternative for plastic has caught on, plastic is mainly used in those situations we dont want it decomposing. A lot of people have developed plant based, biodegradable plastics, its actually not that hard. Theyre just all prone to decomposing
Glass? We used that for decades.
Almost all of the plastic I use at work so ship orders, is used for less than a day. Tape, plastic bags, wrap, strapping.
We use so much of it to just contain things for extrememly short periods of time, its all disposable plastic that isnt needed for more than a day usually, often hours.
Nothing about does anyone think even once we dont want it to decompose too soon
We we are one industry, and just one branch of one player in it. And we are one of the few areas that has rules about recycling.
Industry can change if they want but they dont.
We could easily switch to paper tape and start there at least eliminating one entire product line from waste. But if we can just straight up swap oil-plastic tape for biodegradable-plastic tape it would be one example of something we can do right now that we won’t until we are forced to
All it would take is the product be available and the cost not more than what we are using. So subsidize the cost of using the product we want to lower its price and get people using it. When they do scaling and maturing of this new product will also bring the cost down which will reduce the need of subsidizing it, over time or sudden advances, and make the bad product less appealing because of cost.
But you have to make that transition as easy as simply ordering a different part number when ordering supplies.
Its never going to be industry that makes this happen unless it costs less. So it will likely need to come from government whether it be economic policy or legislative policy
The problem with cardboard isnt that it decomposes, but that its made of paper, which absorbs fluids. Its also not really possible to make air-proof packaging with cardboard.
I wonder why we shifted away from things like waxed paper milk cartons(like the small ones you’d get in school) and waxed butcher paper?
Is waxed paper/cardboard product really that much more expensive than plastic in terms of packaging?
Here in Germany, all milk is still distributed in cardboard packages
you mean cardboard packages with plastic linings ?
Yeah, but the inner lining of tetrapacks is plastic
It’s not really a problem of lack of know-how, not even a problem of mass production (some industries made the transition for various reasons). It’s a problem of a monopoly with dirty lobbies & gov subsidies.
Ah crap. 😩
I have a lot to say when reading a headline like this, but it boils down to: I really hope advances like this and EV’s topple the fossil fuel industry that’s hurting our planet.
I agree, although, the pessimist in me says the Oil companies will find a way to kill it somehow.
Hate to say it, but i think it’s going to require violence to change their calculations.
Probably by buying and then sitting on the patents
There are already compostable alternatives to plastic bags being sold in stores like Target. I heard one of the issues is that people/companies refuse to pay more for them.
Sounds like something laws should fix
Exactly… We need heavy focus on packaging… plastic bags are barely a problem. I don’t care if my food packaging is flashy… I shouldn’t be in the hook if this stuff doesn’t decompose naturally. Meat is the most agriegious example why do we use heavy styrene?
Every tiny change they try gets met with huge backlash, people still rage about plastic straws. It’s got to be a cultural change too.
Some of those “compostable” bags actually decompose into microplastics, so unfortunately they’re not always better
Do you have a citation for that? That sounds like disinformation. Compostable bags are made from plants not plastic. https://www.makeitmatter.com/faq
Again?
I kid of course. The durable bioplastics from the 50s were made from plant cellulose.
They still are.
But they used to be too.
Oh, nice… techno-solution No. 456927493923990003038. You know… the same ole’ techno-solutions they’ve been promising us will solve all the capitalism-instigated problems (ie, problems that aren’t technological in nature) since at least the 80s?
I’ll just go ahead and file this with the rest.
Damn right, many techno-solutions already exist and have for a while but don’t get used, usually due to bribery by the purveyors of the problem.
No, usually because of the same reason most of these innovations don’t work. They don’t scale for one of 1000 reasons.
Not everything is a conspiracy.
No one said its a magic wand, it’s one of many things that could potrntislly help reduce the damage we do to the ecosystem.
Yes capitalism bad but there’s eight billion people on the planet so a communist system would also need modern materials to allow everyone to live a good life.
No one said its a magic wand,
Of course they don’t say it’s a “magic wand…” even the media doesn’t think you’re that stupid.
it’s one of many things that could potrntislly help reduce the damage we do to the ecosystem.
So when do they start? As I’ve already implied - they’ve been enthusiastically peddling “techno-fixes” to these problems since at least the 80s (I know because I was there), and they haven’t made much of a dent, have they? Does it perhaps have something to do with the fact that the problems caused by capitalism isn’t technological, perhaps?
so a communist system would also need modern materials to allow
If the problems aren’t technological it means modern materials isn’t the problem, is it?
The problem is caused by eight billion people wanting to live full lives with meaning and purpose.
I guess your childhood was very different to mine, or more likely you’d currently living in a sealed community like the Amish but locked to cassette decks and big hair. For those of us living in reality things have changed massively since the 80s, even the US has more solar generation than coal generation, electric car usage is starting to dent oil demand, work from home and automation is starting to reduce commuting - but you wouldn’t know about these things because they’re only possible due to lots of advances that happened since you got frozen in the time bubble.
No its not perfect, life is hugely complex and global society even more so but less people die of dysentery every year, more industries move to sustainable models and ecologically safe practices all the time, and new options for people trying to create solutions reach the market everyday.
What do you think we should do? Shut off the oil snd let billions die as global society collapsed and chaos is unleashed as billions od desperate people destroy everything in a panic? Or more likely you don’t have a solution because you don’t care it’s just an empty argument to help you avoid reality.
If you install a communist system will people magically not want food and water and entertainment? Did Deng modernise Mao s vision because the revolutionaries were all secretly CIA agents or because it’s.not actually very easy to create a fully working centrally planned economy?
Just saying capitalism is the problem doesn’t help anyone if your only solution is wishing upon a star.
yet more inane blathering
I thought that only tankies resort to flooding a reply with bullshit whining to try and deflect from the point - yet here you are, liberal.
I guess you really aren’t that different.
I responded to your message, you have no answers so you resort to name calling
I responded to your message,
I didn’t message you, liberal. Entitle yourself to that kind of importance when you’re circle-jerking with your liberal friends, okay?
Yes and I responded to yours, why are you crying about it?
Life is better due to millions of technological developments, no one said that this or anybtech will solve all the problems associated with keeping 8 billion people alive and happy but it’s likely to have some important use cases which will combine with
Life is better
For whom? The kiddies who mined the cobalt in your phone?
solve all the problems associated with keeping 8 billion people alive and happy
Riiight… because that’s what capitalism is concerned with - keeping 8 billion people happy. Nothing to do with profits, eh?
That’s such a pathetic response, you’ve heard the talking point that cobalt is mined in shitty conditions so that’s your magic handwave to avoid having to actually interact with reality.
Yes that mobile phone you hate has completely changed the prospects of many of the poorest people on the planet, avoiding having to build cable infrastructure over Africa’s complex geography has allowed remote communities to have access to emergency services, education, and all the other benefits of modern communication.
If you actually got involved in projects devoted to helping improve material conditions for impoverished people you’d know all this but of course you don’t, you only care about the kids in Africa when you can use them to score s political point or to avoid engaging in society to a meaningful degree.
Your bullshit is paper thin, you pretend to be so worthy that you can’t possibly participate in capitalism but you don’t have any solutions beside sneering st everyone who is actually making positive changes in the world. You don’t just want to be lazy you want to be celebrated as a moral hero for it.
Where is your solution? If every scientist, engineer, tech, office worker and operator is so evil and stupid for working under capitalism then where’s your solution? How are you going to help all the people in shit situations AND transition away from unsustainable practices such as burning fossil fuels?
Oh, you don’t have anything at all beside platitudes, slogans and snappy memes?
Oh look… Mister Liberal has turned full-on capitalism-apologist.
No surprises there.
you’ve heard the talking point that cobalt is mined
I live in a 3rd world mining town, apologist. Go on… tell me how happy we should be.
that mobile phone you hate has completely changed the prospects of many of the poorest people on the planet,
So capitalism has been good to poor people, hey? We can’t have healthcare or even clean drinking water - but those cellphones must sure be worth it!
blah, blah, blah, blather, blather, blather
You can take the rest of your wall-of-text apologetics and shove it where the sun don’t shine, you creep.
Haha oh wow I love when people tell lies like this! You’re in a 3rd world mining town in an impoverished region without access to drinking water but you can post all day on lemmy in perfect written English?
If your story was true it’d prove everything I was explaining about internet connectivity and mobile telephony.
My grandad actually was a miner who died young just like his dad and his dad before him, back then you didn’t need to venture into the depths of the DRC to find illegal cobalt mines, all mining was a slow death sentence but then technologies changed that. We’ve even started using EAF in steel production so the ecological impact of making things like steel rail tracks is being reduced and coal mining can be transitioned away from.
You think one bad thing existing now is worse than the brutal conditions of the past because you have no concept of reality and how truly brutal things used to be. Comditions are improving in the drc too, there are huge international efforts on going especially formalization of ASM sites to end exploitation and unsafe practices. The majority of cobalt is from LSM sites with formalized safety protection and community support tieins, I’m sure you’re gong to tell me where in the DRC you live do I can tell you details of local initiatives? I mean you live in a 3rd world country that mines cobalt that’s pretty much only the DRC, maybe papa new guinea or morroco, possibly Phillipines if you really want to stretch the definition of 3rd world, or Cuba but then you couldn’t blame capitalism for that mine so I’m guessing not…
Face reality, tech developments improve the lives of people regardless of the system in place - yes or would be nice to move past capitalism and greed based society but we’re not going to do that by living in s fantasy land.
You’re in a 3rd world mining town in an impoverished region without access to drinking water but you can post all day on lemmy in perfect written English?
So you don’t actually know squat about the people you pretend should be “thankful” for your glorious parasite ideology, eh apologist?
Yeah… no surprises there.
You know what we have a term for people over here who pretend we should be “thankful” for the (supposed) “gift” of colonialism - we call you white supremacists.
all mining was a slow death sentence but then technologies changed that
No, you irredeemably useless techno-fetishist - saftey measures organised labour fought and died for changed that. I guess your family was too busy licking the boots of the rich to inform you of that, eh? It would explain a lot.
With liberals like you, who the fuck needs fascists?
Ha sure buddy, keep the fantasy going and use absurd claims to justify your total lack of an argument.
Are you not embarrassed within yourself?
This is exciting news. Repubs pretend climate change is a myth because the oil industry has them in pocket. The smarter take would be to cheer for all the economic incentives to build new markets that are sustainable.
In this case, the potential doesn’t relate to climate change, but to pollution. It might make carbon a teensy bit worse, but probably not enough to matter (and growing the algae would presumably more than offset that tiny bit).
Oil company says “no”
Is it price-competitive with the oil-plastic? What usecases?
I want to be optimistic, but…
However, cost is currently a prohibitive issue to widespread use, the researchers said. While petroleum is readily available to siphon from the ground, widespread infrastructure for algae farming will be needed for plastics made of the bio-based polymer to become used en masse, Burkart said.
However, the process the researchers devised can also be applied to other plant-based material, Burkart said.
The researchers hope their new process can eventually be implemented widely for food packaging, Pomeroy said.
“But if you’re going to ask me, ‘Could we do this with anything?’ I’m pretty sure we could do this with most anything,” he said.
Sounds like an economy of scales problem, and the scale isn’t there. Fixable, but not great.
No he said that in the video. It’s a moot point. We are looking at doing something new. Will it be price competitive once it matures? Thats what we need to be asking.
Because if yes, immediately shift ALL subsidies from petroleum to whatever CAN effectively replace oil-plastic.
Whatever we do, it has to actually be effective regardless of cost. Cost come down as economies of scale sort themselves out.
Plastic is killing us anyway, what cost matters if we are all dead?
This is a problem NOW. Paying for it is a problem LATER.
great wasnt the whole benefit of plastik that it doesent decompose tho?
Depends on the use case.
Reading the article, it doesn’t seem like it just disintegraties after 7 months, this material has to be under compositing conditions with a specific microbe due 7 months.
There are applications where this would probably be an unacceptable possibility, but I’d imagine the vast majority of single use plastics would be fine with this. Packaging may spend months or even years doing it’s job, but it won’t be under compost conditions during that time.
Not really. The reason plastic exploded in use is because it’s cheap, durable, lightweight, and really versatile.
Look around you and consider what it would take to manufacture some plastic objects in another material.
Disposable things like packaging would be perfect to decompose after their lifetime is over.I do wish there was a sign whether this would be realistically cheap or not. That is the key as to whether it could be single use plastics.
In terms of the process, it looks like for now it needs to land in a compost heap with a specific microbe. I am concerned about the practical chance of this particular plastic finding it’s way to the special compost heap without getting mixed in with other plastics.
my prior statement was a bit obtuse you are correct
That was the selling point before we got into mass production of disposable plastic everything.
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Nobody ever thinks about the oli barons /s
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Yes and they can make paper from kudzu. So - wrapped in paper then bioplastic and voilá. No more eternal waste.
