4 ms·
A concern that's been in the back of mind for a while is, what if plastic isn't as long lasting as we think? To put another way, what is the carbon footprint of
by TSiege 3y ago
A concern that's been in the back of mind for a while is, what if plastic isn't as long lasting as we think? To put another way, what is the carbon footprint of microorganisms evolving to eat it? Are we looking at another carbon bomb?
- thsksbd 3y agoFor all the reasons to hate plastic in the oceans, I wouldn't worry about that. Think of the plastic full cycle, almost all plastic comes from oil, but almost all oil goes to energy production. Therefore what plastic makes it into the oceans represents a small fraction of the total carbon emissions. Besides, it appears to take a very long time to decay, significantly reducing the GHG potential of plastic
- opwieurposiu 3y agoAbout 4% of oil is used to make plastic, so even if all the yearly output of plastic was converted to CO2 by microbes it would not be a huge increase.
- kube-system 3y agoBut discarded plastic currently keeps CO2 from all of the plastic ever made sequestered.
- BlueTemplar 3y ago"All plastic ever made" isn't as much as you would imagine, because half of all plastic ever made has been made in the last 13 years !
- spurgu 3y agoThat's crazy. And depressing. Have we learned nothing?
- wahnfrieden 3y agoRate is increasing. There’s no individual consumer solution to this. It requires global revolution
- pier25 3y agoIt might be 4% of one year, but what about all the plastic produced in the last 70 years?
- maxerickson 3y agoYeah, it's gonna be similar in magnitude to 3 years. Not excellent, but not going to make a long run difference either. That's without looking at estimates of plastic production, but it's likely enough to be higher now than the majority of the 70 years.
- sbierwagen 3y agoHere's the graph of global plastics production: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/exports/global-plastics-production.svg https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/exports/global-plastics-p... It's an exponential curve. Most plastic made was made relatively recently. This is less obvious in the first world, where we've had consumer plastics for many decades. Most growth in plastic use happens outside the US.
- cthalupa 3y agoMy understanding is that 4% number is for the oil used in plastic production, which is not necessarily the amount of oil sequestered in the actual plastic. Conversely, I don't know if that number includes production from natural gas and not just crude oil, and a lot of plastic feedstock is made from it.
- aziaziazi 3y agoMost organisms metabolize organic materials into methane, not CO2. Edit: > Direct methane emissions released to the atmosphere (without burning) are about 25 times more powerful than CO2 in terms of their warming effect on the atmosphere. https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gases-equivalencies-calculator-calculations-and-references https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gases-equivalencies-ca...
- ajsnigrutin 3y agoBut building a pool, throwing in plastic and bacteria could be a good thing after all. Then just plant some trees to convert co2 into wood, then cut down the trees, make furniture, then dump furniture into oceans to make new oil. The circle of oil!
- BlueTemplar 3y agoAFAIK this circle has stopped working when new organisms evolved that could degrade cellulose ?