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Should we maybe not try to recycle plastics, but just try to contain them in landfills? Our atmosphere is polluted with CO2, wouldn't recycling or incinerating
by konschubert 7y ago
Should we maybe not try to recycle plastics, but just try to contain them in landfills?
Our atmosphere is polluted with CO2, wouldn't recycling or incinerating plastics release even more of that?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- SubiculumCode 7y agoCreating microbes for eating plastics seems like a recipe for a lot of goo....turning all our insulation, computer gear, and a billion other things in our homes into microbe food seems to me poorly thought out.
- userbinator 7y agoIndeed. Imagine termites, but at a far bigger scale... Don't forget all the very important medical applications of plastics where their inertness matters --- if organisms exist that can start eating away at those, and proliferate, it could cause even more damage to human life.
- WalterBright 7y agoThere was a recent scifi novel about this, I forgot the title. The plot was some anarchists discovered a virus that ate plastic, and released it all over the world, and caused the collapse of civilization. I don't see any big problem with burying the plastic in a landfill. Just don't dump it in the ocean.
- lostlogin 7y agoBurying it doesn’t really solve anything though. And while seemingly unlikely, dumps can be damaged. A recent storm damaged one in the south of New Zealand, spreading plastic down a river and along hundreds of kilometres of coast. https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/fox-glacier-landfill-washed-storm-now-littering-beaches-hundreds-kilometres https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/fox-glacier-land...
- WalterBright 7y ago> Burying it doesn’t really solve anything though. It solves it better than any of the alternatives. > And while seemingly unlikely, dumps can be damaged. Not only does it seem unlikely, it is unlikely. One case doesn't make it likely.
- lostlogin 7y agoOnce buried is it solved, or is it that we can’t see it? Waste plasticn needs a solution, but I don’t think that burning it is the answer. We badly need to reduce the volume created.
- lostlogin 7y agoThat’s an awful comment. I’ll try again. Once buried is it solved, or is it that we can’t see it? Waste plastic needs a solution, but I don’t think that burying it is the answer. We badly need to reduce the volume created.
- WalterBright 7y agoIt has to go somewhere, we can't launch it into the sun. Burying things is not a long term problem - coal is trees buried for millions of years.
- rootw0rm 7y agoThe Andromeda Strain, an early Michael Crichton novel, ended with the virus mutating to consume plastic...causing a jet fighter to crash IIRC.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoImagine that suddenly, plastics can rust.
- thatcat 7y agoPlastics already oxidize through UV, thermal, and hydrolysis reactions.
- Retric 7y agoWood lasts for hundreds of years in the right environments. Similarly most plastic is not in any real risk from this.
- hdfbdtbcdg 7y agoYou have literally no idea if this is true. Literally used in the literal sense because until such microbes exist you can't predict their behavior.
- Retric 7y agoI literally know it’s true from chemistry. Polyethylene for example is a long string of hydrogen and carbon. (CH2-) Microbiology requires more than that for replication. It’s the same reason dry sugar does not get consumed by microbes.
- strainer 7y agoIt was too broad an assurance to base on quick chemical assessment. We have different kinds of plastics situated in many different environments. Regarding the sugar example and microbes primary need for water, from the article - "In 2016, researchers in Japan tested sludge from a recycling plant and uncovered a microbe that could completely break down films of PET to CO2 and H2O" And any opening or crack which rainwater or groundwater or seawater or dust can occasionally access will carry nutrients required for microbial life.
- hdfbdtbcdg 7y agoOn the table in front of me I have several food items that have not spoilt only because of refrigeration. Should I also start to keep my laptop in the fridge to prevent it rotting? Or maybe I should preserve it in vinegar etc. The problem of preservation of food only seems trivial because so many people have worked so hard solving it.
- adrianN 7y agoThe table in front of me would rot really quickly if I put it in a composter.
- userbinator 7y agoBuried plastics may become the oil of future generations.
- wiz21c 7y agoIn the same vein : why not produce/use less plastics ?
- JulianMorrison 7y agoThe long term answer has to be, produce almost no plastic at all, except those cases where it's a genuine necessity such as medical uses.
- adrianN 7y agoI don't think so. The raw materials can be literally synthesized from thin air with enough energy input and you can burn plastics to get rid of them again. What we definitely need to stop completely is letting plastics escape into the environment. Clothes made from plastic fibers for example need to go away.
- JulianMorrison 7y agoIf you have to keep the stuff under harsh disposal control, that would rather obviate the non essential uses.
- TaylorAlexander 7y agoReducing consumption is the most impactful thing we aren’t doing.
- fastball 7y agoThat is the plan. "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" is the mantra, after all.
- thulecitizen 7y agoThere’s even two more R’s now: refuse reduce reuse (+repair) recycle rot
- 7y ago
- dehrmann 7y ago> Our atmosphere is polluted with CO2 "Polluted" isn't the best word to describe it when CO2 levels are 2x historical (for a very long definition of history) levels. They're likely high enough to cause significant climate change, but "polluted" is a funny way of putting it. > recycling If you look at where oil goes, most of it is energy and transportation, not plastics. We're also talking about recycling and not incinerating. But I vote for incinerating for energy. Plastics are too incredible of a technology to not use, but at least now, too hard to feasibly recycle, so I'd rather we burn them and offset the emissions.
- lostlogin 7y agoA key part of this has to be reduced usage. There is an awful lot of plastic made and used that isn’t necessary.
- jimmaswell 7y agoPolluted is perfectly fine. adjective contaminated with harmful or poisonous substances. The quantity of the substance is harmful.
- TylerE 7y agoI would quibble with the use of "contaminated" for something that's always been there. In fact, the atmosphere had quite a lot of carbon dioxide a billion years before there was any significant quantity of oxygen.
- fucking_tragedy 7y agoE. coli, staph and salmonella are everywhere and all over you, but we still call things that have them "contaminated".
- brokenkebab 7y agoWe don't, except in some narrow contexts, like "Large quantities of E.c. found in bottled water". Looking at pristine lake far in woods one wouldn't say "Look, such a contaminated water!" just because there are bacteria. We also don't say "My intestines is contaminated with E.Coli" in spite of the fact it's there too.
- JulianMorrison 7y agoThe risk is microplastic, which can escape cheap containment several ways (wind, water, etc). Yes, turning every planet-wide scrap of plastic into combustion byproducts would release a lot of CO2. It's likely it would pale in comparison to fuel though, since the most it can release is the oil embodied in the plastic, plus the energy used in reprocessing.
- jdietrich 7y agoWe can burn the waste and capture the carbon. We don't need new technology, it's purely economic - capturing carbon is still relatively expensive and carbon emissions are underpriced. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acssuschemeng.7b03283 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acssuschemeng.7b03283