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Mechanically strong yet metabolizable plastic breaks down in seawater

152 points by anigbrowl 2y ago

modeless 2y ago
> can be water stabilized with hydrophobic coatings So when they make takeout containers out of this it's going to be coated with... something. I am suspicious of all these coatings they're slapping on compostable food containers these days.
- senectus1 2y ago
  [flagged]
- Terr_ 2y ago
  Perhaps some sort of food-grade wax? Although then you've got to worry about hot foods...
  - Mistletoe 2y ago
    My aunt got me a big wooden bowl in college and I was poor so I ate popcorn out of it. I noticed the popcorn tasted weird for quite some time. I finally put two and two together when the coating had all come off the bottom. The hot popcorn and oil had been removing the God knows what shiny finish and I had been eating it. :(
    - teekert 2y ago
      We’ve all eaten teflon coating at some point in our lives.
      - justinator 2y ago
        Some of us, on purpose!
    - asquabventured 2y ago
      Hopefully just food grade mineral oil and beeswax if it was a wooden bowl.
      - Mistletoe 2y ago
        It was one of those you might get at Pier 1 or Kohl’s back then and had a really plasticky coating. Not my best moment.
      - kaikai 2y ago
        Unfortunately mineral oil is derived from petroleum. I don’t care if someone says it’s food grade, I wouldn’t want to eat it.
        zdragnar 2y ago
        Paraffin wax (chocolate), polyethylene glycol (toothpaste), vanillin (vanilla flavoring), benzaldehyde (almond flavoring), and the plastic coating on medicine pills are all derived from petroleum. You've likely been eating or using food grade petroleum products your whole life.
- blitzar 2y ago
  I am suspicious of the food in the takeout containers.
- sfink 2y ago
  Well, even vegetable oil is hydrophobic, so "something" needn't be too horrible. (Oil would obviously wipe off too easily.) Apparently soybean wax works well: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7435775/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7435775/ Though not for hot foods. It'll only work up to 50°C.
  - HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
    Or hot climates that reach >50 C
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - thaumasiotes 2y ago
      There's no reason you'd ever worry about that; no one can use any object in such a climate, because they'd die.
      - HPsquared 2y ago
        People definitely live in places where it gets that hot. (And note that's the air temperature in the shade, not even surface temperatures in sunlight which can get much hotter). People survive because it's not 50°C all the time in those hot places. And the wet bulb temperature is lower, so sweating works (just about) to regulate body temperature. Mostly air conditioning and shelter, though.
      - latexr 2y ago
        You have not been paying attention. https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Copernicus/Sentinel-3/Europe_braces_for_sweltering_July https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Coperni... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/22/west-africa-heatwave https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/22/west-africa-he... https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-66229057 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-66229057
- dwallin 2y ago
  They specifically mention a coating in the abstract, parylene C.
- crimsonnoodle58 2y ago
  Yeah that was my first thought too, "Oh great, they'll just coat it with PFAS".
XorNot 2y ago
Interesting that this is a thermoplastic - my first question is how it performs as a 3D printer filament?
- jtms 2y ago
  second question - does it/will it cost like $500 per 1kg spool?
- sfink 2y ago
  The researchers are wondering, too. Last sentence in the abstract: > This approach can be extended to polysaccharide-based supramolecular plastics that are applicable for three-dimensional printing. (So, they haven't done it yet, but are thinking about it.)
progre 2y ago
> Plastics that can metabolize in oceans are highly sought for a sustainable future. Really? I think that putting more nutrients in the water is almost as bad as having plastics floating around. The Baltic sea for example, have dead zones caused by agricultural runoff. Surely, the best would be to not put more stuff in the water?
- relaxing 2y ago
  Well yeah but good luck with that.
- pfdietz 2y ago
  The natural input of "nutrients" to the ocean is vast, compared to the natural input of modern artificial plastics.
- ruined 2y ago
  it is certainly good to not put more stuff in the water. i would suggest it is even better not to make stuff that shouldn't go in the water. but apparently a lot has already been made and there's constantly more of it in the water, and it looks like nobody is stopping so if some major fraction of present production of that shit that shouldn't go in the water can be eliminated, and satisfied by an alternative that is not a persistent accumulating poison, i'll take it
  - zo1 2y ago
    Seems like a pretty easy problem to solve if you ask me: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stemming-the-plastic-tide-10-rivers-contribute-most-of-the-plastic-in-the-oceans/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stemming-the-plas... Someone should send this link to Trump and Elon Musk so America and the EU can slap some actual serious and economy-breaking tariffs on those countries. I know that sounds snarky and drastic and funny and off-topic, but we seriously need actual serious politicians that just get shit done. We've tried the "reasonable politicians" approach so far, maybe it's time to bring in people that are unpalatable but actually willing to break shit and blockade some actual evil people and countries around the world in order to make positive change.
burnt-resistor 2y ago
We've heard the "biodegradable" greenwashing scam of plastic technology advances over and over again. Maybe we shouldn't be seeking continued use of toxic petrochemical processes and should instead change our storage and packaging materials to be less hazardous and more reusable, because many other options already exist.
- 1minusp 2y ago
  This. There seems to be one of these announcements every so often, and i havent seen any of them used at scale, or making any kind of dent in the status quo.
- InDubioProRubio 2y ago
  That will be 5 $ more per butterstick, for the logistics of reusable porcelain butter packages.. which have to be collected, washed and shipped. Which makes it a rich people feel good status-symbol luxury, sadly.
  - vhcr 2y ago
    Or you know, supermarkets would purchase 50kg blocks of butter and fraction it, clients would then be responsible for bringing their own reusable containers.
    - layer8 2y ago
      You’d still have to pay the employee who’d be responsible for cutting and weighing the butter for each customer, and taking payment for the butter (or however else that would work). Or build a machine that does it. Not sure how the cost for that would work out, or the machine’s ecological footprint in comparison.
      - jdietrich 2y ago
        Plus all of the food hygiene and logistical implications of handling products in bulk, multiplied by the 30,000 different products in a typical supermarket. I don't know about the US, but in my country butter is packaged in waxed paper, which is fully biodegradable.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
siliconc0w 2y ago
The sooner the cost of plastics actually reflect their true cost to society (which is basically infinite if they cause genetic damage), the sooner we get viable replacements.
freeqaz 2y ago
I can't tell if this is similar to PHA or not, but that's a plastic you can buy for 3d printing today that is touted to break down in seawater. https://www.fabbaloo.com/news/pha-colorfabbs-fully-biodegradable-alternative-to-pla-and-petg-for-3d-printing https://www.fabbaloo.com/news/pha-colorfabbs-fully-biodegrad... This is their site: https://colorfabb.us/filaments/materials/pha-filaments https://colorfabb.us/filaments/materials/pha-filaments
fsckboy 2y ago
these plastics that will break down are designed to fix the problems of plastics... which problems are that plastics break down. We only need for plastics to break down more because they've already broken down, into microplastics and god knows what else. I want to go in the other direction, plastics that simply don't break down, ever. Plastic laundry baskets with handles that keep being handles. Slick looking rubbery objects that don't turn into a sticky mess. We never thought of plastics as a pollutant because we thought plastics wouldn't break down. Make it so.

152 points by anigbrowl 2y ago

> can be water stabilized with hydrophobic coatings So when they make takeout containers out of this it's going to be coated with... something. I am suspicious of all these coatings they're slapping on compostable food containers these days.

senectus1 2y ago
[flagged]
Terr_ 2y ago
Perhaps some sort of food-grade wax? Although then you've got to worry about hot foods...
- Mistletoe 2y ago
  My aunt got me a big wooden bowl in college and I was poor so I ate popcorn out of it. I noticed the popcorn tasted weird for quite some time. I finally put two and two together when the coating had all come off the bottom. The hot popcorn and oil had been removing the God knows what shiny finish and I had been eating it. :(
  - teekert 2y ago
    We’ve all eaten teflon coating at some point in our lives.
    - justinator 2y ago
      Some of us, on purpose!
  - asquabventured 2y ago
    Hopefully just food grade mineral oil and beeswax if it was a wooden bowl.
    - Mistletoe 2y ago
      It was one of those you might get at Pier 1 or Kohl’s back then and had a really plasticky coating. Not my best moment.
    - kaikai 2y ago
      Unfortunately mineral oil is derived from petroleum. I don’t care if someone says it’s food grade, I wouldn’t want to eat it.
      - zdragnar 2y ago
        Paraffin wax (chocolate), polyethylene glycol (toothpaste), vanillin (vanilla flavoring), benzaldehyde (almond flavoring), and the plastic coating on medicine pills are all derived from petroleum. You've likely been eating or using food grade petroleum products your whole life.
blitzar 2y ago
I am suspicious of the food in the takeout containers.
sfink 2y ago
Well, even vegetable oil is hydrophobic, so "something" needn't be too horrible. (Oil would obviously wipe off too easily.) Apparently soybean wax works well: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7435775/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7435775/ Though not for hot foods. It'll only work up to 50°C.
- HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
  Or hot climates that reach >50 C
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - thaumasiotes 2y ago
    There's no reason you'd ever worry about that; no one can use any object in such a climate, because they'd die.
    - HPsquared 2y ago
      People definitely live in places where it gets that hot. (And note that's the air temperature in the shade, not even surface temperatures in sunlight which can get much hotter). People survive because it's not 50°C all the time in those hot places. And the wet bulb temperature is lower, so sweating works (just about) to regulate body temperature. Mostly air conditioning and shelter, though.
    - latexr 2y ago
      You have not been paying attention. https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Copernicus/Sentinel-3/Europe_braces_for_sweltering_July https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Coperni... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/22/west-africa-heatwave https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/22/west-africa-he... https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-66229057 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-66229057
dwallin 2y ago
They specifically mention a coating in the abstract, parylene C.
crimsonnoodle58 2y ago
Yeah that was my first thought too, "Oh great, they'll just coat it with PFAS".

XorNot 2y ago

Interesting that this is a thermoplastic - my first question is how it performs as a 3D printer filament?

jtms 2y ago
second question - does it/will it cost like $500 per 1kg spool?
sfink 2y ago
The researchers are wondering, too. Last sentence in the abstract: > This approach can be extended to polysaccharide-based supramolecular plastics that are applicable for three-dimensional printing. (So, they haven't done it yet, but are thinking about it.)

progre 2y ago

> Plastics that can metabolize in oceans are highly sought for a sustainable future. Really? I think that putting more nutrients in the water is almost as bad as having plastics floating around. The Baltic sea for example, have dead zones caused by agricultural runoff. Surely, the best would be to not put more stuff in the water?

relaxing 2y ago
Well yeah but good luck with that.
pfdietz 2y ago
The natural input of "nutrients" to the ocean is vast, compared to the natural input of modern artificial plastics.
ruined 2y ago
it is certainly good to not put more stuff in the water. i would suggest it is even better not to make stuff that shouldn't go in the water. but apparently a lot has already been made and there's constantly more of it in the water, and it looks like nobody is stopping so if some major fraction of present production of that shit that shouldn't go in the water can be eliminated, and satisfied by an alternative that is not a persistent accumulating poison, i'll take it
- zo1 2y ago
  Seems like a pretty easy problem to solve if you ask me: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stemming-the-plastic-tide-10-rivers-contribute-most-of-the-plastic-in-the-oceans/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stemming-the-plas... Someone should send this link to Trump and Elon Musk so America and the EU can slap some actual serious and economy-breaking tariffs on those countries. I know that sounds snarky and drastic and funny and off-topic, but we seriously need actual serious politicians that just get shit done. We've tried the "reasonable politicians" approach so far, maybe it's time to bring in people that are unpalatable but actually willing to break shit and blockade some actual evil people and countries around the world in order to make positive change.

burnt-resistor 2y ago

We've heard the "biodegradable" greenwashing scam of plastic technology advances over and over again. Maybe we shouldn't be seeking continued use of toxic petrochemical processes and should instead change our storage and packaging materials to be less hazardous and more reusable, because many other options already exist.

1minusp 2y ago
This. There seems to be one of these announcements every so often, and i havent seen any of them used at scale, or making any kind of dent in the status quo.
InDubioProRubio 2y ago
That will be 5 $ more per butterstick, for the logistics of reusable porcelain butter packages.. which have to be collected, washed and shipped. Which makes it a rich people feel good status-symbol luxury, sadly.
- vhcr 2y ago
  Or you know, supermarkets would purchase 50kg blocks of butter and fraction it, clients would then be responsible for bringing their own reusable containers.
  - layer8 2y ago
    You’d still have to pay the employee who’d be responsible for cutting and weighing the butter for each customer, and taking payment for the butter (or however else that would work). Or build a machine that does it. Not sure how the cost for that would work out, or the machine’s ecological footprint in comparison.
    - jdietrich 2y ago
      Plus all of the food hygiene and logistical implications of handling products in bulk, multiplied by the 30,000 different products in a typical supermarket. I don't know about the US, but in my country butter is packaged in waxed paper, which is fully biodegradable.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

siliconc0w 2y ago

The sooner the cost of plastics actually reflect their true cost to society (which is basically infinite if they cause genetic damage), the sooner we get viable replacements.

freeqaz 2y ago

I can't tell if this is similar to PHA or not, but that's a plastic you can buy for 3d printing today that is touted to break down in seawater. https://www.fabbaloo.com/news/pha-colorfabbs-fully-biodegradable-alternative-to-pla-and-petg-for-3d-printing https://www.fabbaloo.com/news/pha-colorfabbs-fully-biodegrad... This is their site: https://colorfabb.us/filaments/materials/pha-filaments https://colorfabb.us/filaments/materials/pha-filaments

fsckboy 2y ago

these plastics that will break down are designed to fix the problems of plastics... which problems are that plastics break down. We only need for plastics to break down more because they've already broken down, into microplastics and god knows what else. I want to go in the other direction, plastics that simply don't break down, ever. Plastic laundry baskets with handles that keep being handles. Slick looking rubbery objects that don't turn into a sticky mess. We never thought of plastics as a pollutant because we thought plastics wouldn't break down. Make it so.