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Hot take, plant origin plastics should be deliberately engineered to be non biodegradable so we can lock that carbon up in a landfill instead of releasing it ba
by vikramkr 2y ago
Hot take, plant origin plastics should be deliberately engineered to be non biodegradable so we can lock that carbon up in a landfill instead of releasing it back into the atmosphere
- DFHippie 2y agoThis is basically what we have now and there is an enormous and growing pollution problem due to the non-degrading plastic. If we could get people to dispose of their waste in a landfill always and forever, this might work, but in practice people treat the world like an open sewer.
- vikramkr 2y ago(don't 100% buy this take but don't think it's completely invalid either lol) Arguably, that problem is worse in countries with poor landfill/trash collection infrastructure, the US isn't in the top ten for example (https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/visualized-ocean-plastic-waste-pollution-by-country/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/visualized-ocean-plastic...). And in places like the US, the difference between plant sourced and fossil fuel sourced plastic is that plant based would shift the externality calculation towards net positive externalities, since it would shift the plastic industry towards ideally becoming a net carbon sink and leverage consumerism and america's love of single use plastics and packaging to create a market for carbon capture.