Step 1. Invent microplastics.
Step 2. Have people ingest microplastics into their bodies.
Step 3. Evolve plastic-eating mushrooms.
Step 4. ???
Step 5. The Last of Us IRL
this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2024
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Those two dudes in the fenced off city led pretty great lives in The Last of Us. Everyone else suffered terribly though.
Step 6: Become a closeted prepper
That needs to be step 3 at the latest, otherwise you won't be prepared in time for step 5.
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I've seen this every year for a decade still not a thing
Plastic is also such an unspecific term. In regards to biodegradability there is no reason why PE, PP, PVC, PLA, PS and all the others should behave similiarly. Aside from some form of polymerization they are entirely different chemicals.
It would actually be scary to me if an organism evolves to rapidly eat all plastic. Imagine plastic rust... ugh, its just a terrifying idea. You think mantianing a car is difficult now, wait until you have to check the integrity of any "plastic" component
Wood didn't rot in the carboniferous era. It used to build up in dense layers that became our modern coal veins.
At some point microorganisms evolved to exploit that vast resource. Now coal can no longer generate naturally and we have to keep wood structures dry or painted lest they be reclaimed by the Eafth.
I don't know if there's any reason it couldn't happen to plastics. We've created the niche already, how long until something exploits it?
Rust is not caused by a living organism but fine. There's another good solution: don't use plastic. Also, we don't need personal cars
Well there is a simple remedy, and it is the same like for rust. Keep it dry. All microbial live needs water just as much as larger liveforms. If it is dry it can't spoil, even if there is microorganisms on it. They might be alive, but they'll be in stasis without sufficent accessible water. accessibility is also important here. E.g. salty water or water with high amounts of sugar are not useful to most microorganisms.
We all know how easy it is to keep a car dry in the PNW.
We all know how easy it is to keep a car dry in the PNW.
Bro rust isnt the issue up there its damn moss growing on your car. If it sits too long (or even if it doesn) shit starts looking like treebeard.
And the pine needles. So many pine needles. Every little crevice and hole on your car, stuffed to the brim with pine needles.
Yeah it just destroy the purpose of plastic
Well it’s a similar thing with “A cure for Cancer”. A cure for WHICH cancer? There are dozens of them…
Quality research is slow my dude.
and sensationalist journalism of preliminary research is faster than light
Journalists breaking the law!
!of physics!<
The trick is that the mushroom would still rather eat literally anything else. So you'd have to gather a pile of only that specific plastic to break down, and now you have the initial problems of why we don't recycle in the first place: 💰
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That's nice and all but these are fungi release CO2 into the atmosphere just like burning it would. It's a bit counter-intuitive but burning it with carbon capture is less CO2 emitting.
Filtering out particles is obvious requirement and easier than filtering CO2. This is all a worse solution than to simply use less plastic. Taxing plastic out of existence is the real solution.
But the plastic already is captured carbon. Burning it and then capturing it again makes no sense at all.
If you want to avoid the micro plastic, store it better, that's still much cheaper.
Right next to the nuclear waste, I guess?
ironically nuclear waste is way safer, because we have extremely strict standards for handling it.
also most nuclear waste is just irradiated tools and clothing
Taxing wasteful uses and protecting life saving uses (sanitization, hospitals, etc). Is the only solution. Treat every other approach as distractions by people who want to profit from the way things are.
Plastic is one of the greatest inventions of all time. But just like nuclear energy, it's also the most deadly to us if we are stupid.
Don't even ask. Just start releasing that shit.
Man, Vincent and Jules were some really fun guys.
Step 1: make everything from plastics
Step 2: create plastic eating fungus to get rid of the trash
Step 3: create serious damage to all parts of our society and technology, as plastic eating fungus spores get everywhere, including our food chain and your brain.
you eat fungus spores every single day nonstop. They are everywhere. Just cause this one eats plastic why would the spores be dangerous? (also it probably only eats one type so like 5% of plastic)
Theoretically if they don't produce toxins as a byproduct of plastic metabolism, eating the plastics out of our brains could (in an idealized and highly unlikely case) be a good thing. If they don't also eat organic matter they'll starve out when the plastics are gone and our immune system could clean out the debris left behind
This is really bugging me. The article claims the fungus is an edible mushroom, but Pestalotiopsis (the spores on the right) is an endophytic, microscopic ascomycete. Not a mushroom and certainly not edible. So why is there a picture of Pluteus on the left? I can only imagine the author googled "Pestalotiopsis mushroom" and grabbed the first picture that came up.
Can you eat the mushrooms later? Circle of life!
Nooo fuck this is stupid!
Plastic in landfills is sequestered carbon! Why release it into the atmosphere?
Breeding bacteria to eat plastic will make plastic less useful as a material. Plastic is awesome because it DOESN'T rot. If we do release plastic eating microorganisms that might change. Whatever environmentalist think, we use plastics for a reason.
What we need is:
- Create plastics without oil and from sustainable energy
- Recycle plastics (invent better plastics and recycling processes)
- Stop throwing plastic in the oceans
- bury plastic in landfill to sequester carbon
What exactly is solved by introducing plastic eating microorganisms into the ecosystem? If microplastics don't deteriorate, they'll eventually become like sand and all the other shit. I swear to God this is the stupidest thing since solar fricking roadways.
PS: If you absolutely don't want to recycle or bury plastic you can also burn it in the right circumstances. Instead of feeding it to mushrooms and releasing CO2 and methane into the air you get heat and can capture the CO2.
PPS: Microplastics is a qustion of regulation. And garbage dumping into rivers (like most of the plastic in the oceans comes from a few rivers) is a problem of economic idiocy. Neoliberal Ideology is produced in the US and exported into developing countries. Loans and shit demand privatization of all sorts of services. Including garbage removal. The result? People dump trash in the rivers because muh socialism is bad. Plastic in the ocean is a problem with very simple non-technical solutions.
Would be great if mushrooms don't burn the carbon and turned it into some other compound using energy(maybe something like fossil fuels)
I did see something about new methods through chemical processes to turn more plastics back into the feedstock. Search "plastic feedstock" or "circular feedstock" or something. It probably requires some chemicals and heat and pressure or something, but that could be powered by solar or wind. It's just a question of economics (money), investments, and most likely planning.
But really, burning plastic isn't "nice" but fundamentally there isn't a big difference between some mineral rock buried below the earth or plastic. And with carbon sequestration it's a net positive - at least once we stop using fossil fuels and switch to a circular economy.
This article (https://www.treehugger.com/mushroom-that-eats-plastic-5121023) goes into more detail. There are at least three species. It’s from 2022, so there’s probably something more recent…
From July last year (https://www.shroomer.com/mycoremediation-plastic-eating-mushrooms/)
Watch out for badgers and snakes tho
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