[HN Gopher] Think you can't compost styrofoam? Mealworms are the...
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Think you can't compost styrofoam? Mealworms are the answer
Author : rrauenza
Score : 58 points
Date : 2021-01-02 07:52 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (livingearthsystems.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (livingearthsystems.com)
| ars wrote:
| "Fed with Styrofoam as the sole diet, the larvae lived as well as
| those fed with a normal diet (bran) over a period of 1 month"
|
| I do not believe this claim.
|
| Polystyrene has only carbon and hydrogen - so where are the
| mealworms getting nitrogen for protein synthesis? If they are
| getting it from the air, that's pretty major, and I highly doubt
| it.
|
| Another problematic claim:
|
| "and the rest into mineralized organic material"
|
| What mineral exactly are they making that is usable for plants?
| Carbon and Hydrogen would leave just CO2 and water as waste
| products. What could they possibly be making?
| aeoleonn wrote:
| What synthetic chemicals remain in bodies & excrement of the
| mealworms?
|
| Assuming synthetic chemicals are not somehow metabolized into
| natural chemicals, then the problem remains.
| ars wrote:
| Since polystyrene has only carbon and hydrogen in it, the
| number of problematic chemicals you can make from it is quite
| limited.
|
| Not zero certainly, I'm sure a chemist could find some, but
| starting from polystyrene (which is very stable) and ending up
| at a problematic chemical is unlikely because the mealworms are
| using the polystyrene for energy, so I would assume they fully
| oxidize it, leaving just CO2 and Water.
| legulere wrote:
| You mean like for instance the known carcinogen styrene?
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Styrene
| ars wrote:
| That's exactly the point: You're not going to go from
| polystyrene to styrene without inputting energy (like in a
| fire).
|
| These mealworms are not going to generate it, they can't.
| [deleted]
| throwaway201103 wrote:
| Article link is returning a 403 so haven't read it; Does this
| release carbon in the form of CO2? If so it's better to leave it
| as-is, or recycle it into other products in ways that don't
| release carbon.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| The answer to which question, though? Sure, some organisms can
| eat styrofoam, and raising vast quantities of them is one
| outbreak away from a massive invasive species problem. So yeah,
| in the lab this is "a" way to get rid of a small amount of
| styrofoam, but it doesn't solve the styrofoam problem. Banning
| styrofoam is half the solution there, and the other half is un-
| economically expensive.
| asdf333 wrote:
| very cool!
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| [deleted]
| hh3k0 wrote:
| Reading the article and your comment afterwards brought
| Simpsons to mind:
|
| Skinner: Well, I was wrong; the lizards are a godsend.
|
| Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when
| we're overrun by lizards?
|
| Skinner: No problem. We simply release wave after wave of
| Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
|
| Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?
|
| Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a
| fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
|
| Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
|
| Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls
| around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| Funny, the comment I posted was one line: "Used to feed
| mealworms to pet chameleons as a kid." Got immediately dinged
| with a DV. I was merely recalling a childhood memory of
| "mealworms". Maybe someone thought I was suggesting some kind
| of remedy to a potential invasive species problem? Nothing of
| the sort. I am all too familiar with real world invasive
| species problems and the historical remedial failures
| associated therewith. Totally different subject.
| projektfu wrote:
| Who knows why you got downvoted, but please don't be so
| sensitive that you delete comments you'd stand by. It's
| annoying to find deleted/edited comments that have replies.
| radicalbyte wrote:
| Here in The Netherlands we collect styrofoam with the recycling,
| it is then turned into a high value insulation product used to
| help insulate our housing stock.
| dekhn wrote:
| I had a ton of extra styrofoam (I live in the SF Bay Area). It
| was hard to find out what to do with it, but finally found out
| that SF will take styrofoam waste for free and compact it with
| a densifier. Their site says "Our densifier converts Styrofoam
| into ingots, which can be re-manufactured into door and crown
| moldings, picture frames, and side and deck board."
| gibolt wrote:
| 'Can be'... I'd be curious what percentage actually is re-
| purposed and how much ends up in a landfill
| dekhn wrote:
| so am I. It seemed that out of all the alternatives, this
| was the best option since it was free, and ostensibly
| recycled where all the other options were to throw it in
| landfill.
| jedberg wrote:
| I did a science fair project once in elementary school. My
| project was to see what materials would break down styrofoam. I
| took a big chunk and broke it into pieces, leaving each in a jar
| of different liquid (and burning one). As one would expect,
| burning it worked really well, but of course let off a ton of
| black smoke.
|
| But you know what else fully dissolved the styrofoam? Coke. One
| week in a jar of coke and it was gone.
| lostlogin wrote:
| What does it turn into?
| datameta wrote:
| Polymer degradation of polystyrene through chain scission, if
| I recall correctly. Phosphoric acid results in a whole bunch
| of H+ ions floating around in the coke. Those can attach to
| the C of both ends of each piece of a broken polymer chain or
| to the aromatic rings on the chain. So the styrofoam breaks
| into shorter and shorter chains until they are simply
| floating in solution invisible to the naked eye.
| bennettfeely wrote:
| Could this mean it's a bad idea to drink Coke from a styrofoam
| cup?
| artursapek wrote:
| It's generally a bad idea to drink coke, or to drink from a
| styrofoam cup.
| ferongr wrote:
| >It's generally a bad idea to drink coke
|
| Not really, it's not worse compared to many other things
| people consume.
| Supermancho wrote:
| Yes really. Other things being worse is whataboutism to
| derail from the issue.
| [deleted]
| jedberg wrote:
| Only if you plan to leave the coke in there for a week
| beforehand.
| amelius wrote:
| Don't these cups have some kind of inner coating?
| ars wrote:
| They do not. You are thinking of paper cups with a plastic
| or wax coating.
| neffy wrote:
| Coke is a fairly strong acid, and somewhat notorious for its
| cleaning properties viz:
| https://www.airtasker.com/blog/15-ways-clean-coca-cola/
| datameta wrote:
| This admittedly might be pedantic however when it comes to
| acids "weak" and "strong" are reserved words, if you will, in
| chemistry; phosphoric is a weak acid. This may be a confusing
| notion at the outset as hydrofluoric acid, for example, is
| terrifically corrosive yet considered "weak".
|
| The distinction lies in whether the acid's molecules fully
| disassociate into ions in solution, or only partially.
| temp0826 wrote:
| Gasoline works great. And with enough styrofoam you get the
| Anarchist's Cookbook version of napalm as a bonus.
| nanomonkey wrote:
| If you want to dissolve polystyrene (styrofoam) then acetone or
| any other organic solvent (even gasoline) does a much faster
| job. And because the foam is mostly air you can get rid of
| quite a lot of it before the solution becomes completely
| saturated. This solution can be used as a sealant, or to fill
| molds and produce plastic parts, although it's advisable to use
| a vacuum chamber to recycle your solvent and help with the
| degassing.
| projektfu wrote:
| I once tried to spray-paint styrofoam black for a school
| project. The solvent in the paint ate away at the plastic and
| left it not foamy immediately.
| nanomonkey wrote:
| Next time put a thin layer of plaster of paris on the
| styrofoam first before painting.
| cududa wrote:
| 12 year old me made napalm with the dissolved styrofoam
| yourapostasy wrote:
| Solvent-based methods have some unfortunate side-effects, and
| are difficult to scale [1]. Low and slow heat appears to work.
| I'm still trying to find reports of anyone who takes end user
| styrofoam and turns it back into desired styrofoam shapes with
| carbon dioxide as a foaming agent, entraining it into the
| closed cells. I've yet to hear of people who reduce styrofoam
| into polystyrene being able to turn it back into styrofoam
| again, but can't tell if that is an outcome of the
| chemistry/thermochemistry (very difficult to address), or lack
| of foaming equipment (addressable with enough expertise, space
| and capital).
|
| Ideally, I'd like to figure out a way to take all styrofoam
| entering say a neighborhood as end user packing gets
| continuously turned into standardized insulation interlocking
| blocks that is continuously, incrementally installed into
| buildings that are pre-built with say, 2-4 meter thick wall
| cavities for incrementally build up the insulation over time.
| The styrofoam that enters our lives as packing material for a
| brief period and becomes unwanted detritus ends up in multi-
| decade and hopefully multi-century building insulation.
|
| I want to do the same with the polyethylene used for most bags,
| though for those I'd want to turn them into sheets and use them
| for endlessly making Kaizen foam to organize, protect and store
| my tooling.
|
| [1] https://davehakkens.nl/community/forums/topic/has-anyone-
| tri...
| grawprog wrote:
| Apparently acetone or any organic solvent work well to dissolve
| styrofoam also.
|
| https://sciencing.com/acetone-styrofoam-experiment-2768.html
|
| Though, that's probably not elementary school safe.
|
| It doesn't remove the Styrofoam though. The Styrofoam is broken
| down into long chains of molecules which remain in the solvent.
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(page generated 2021-01-03 23:01 UTC)