3 ms·
Sounds like a great discovery until you get to the end of the article > Mincer said the study was impressive and did a good job showing that these organisms we
by dsmithatx 11y ago
Sounds like a great discovery until you get to the end of the article
> Mincer said the study was impressive and did a good job showing that these organisms were eating the plastic pretty well.
> However, he said it was not immediately clear whether or not it would help keep plastics out of the ocean, for example.
"When I think it through, I don't really know where it gets us," he said. "
>I don't see how microbes degrading plastics is any better than putting plastic bottles in a recycling bin so they can be melted down to make new ones."
- joe_the_user 11y agoWell, The problem with recycling is that it's economics hinges on the price of oil. The recycling industry where I am (Northern California) has collapsed with the decline in the price of oil[1]. It would be better to use regulation to force recycling but in the absence of that a way to simply dispose of plastic bottles seems excellent. It would nice if the bacteria would be put in dormant form on the bottle labels, making bottles pseudo-biodegradable. [1] http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/5288760-181/recycling-centers-shut-down-in?artslide=0 http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/5288760-181/recycling-cent...
- awda 11y ago> I don't see how microbes degrading plastics is any better than putting plastic bottles in a recycling bin so they can be melted down to make new ones." You don't have to waste money and energy sorting bottles out of the trash if you can just dump a bunch of this bacteria in your landfill.
- dsmithatx 11y agoThe comment you are responding was what the scientists in the article concluded, not something I was saying.