[HN Gopher] Fungus breaks down ocean plastic
___________________________________________________________________
Fungus breaks down ocean plastic
Author : gmays
Score : 241 points
Date : 2024-06-14 00:04 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nioz.nl)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nioz.nl)
| dilawar wrote:
| Imagine bacteria and fungi breaking down all the plastic into
| CO2. Don't know which is lesser evil: plastic as it remaining in
| the environment or more CO2 but less plastic?
| Ma8ee wrote:
| Compared to the amount of CO2 we add to the atmosphere
| continuously (still!), I'm quite sure that the CO2 from all the
| plastic in the ocean is insignificant.
|
| edit: just to make sure that my guess wasn't too far off, I
| looked up some numbers: we relase about 8 million tons of
| plastic into the ocean every year. Burning 1 units of plastic
| produces 3 units of CO2, giving 24 million tons of CO2 if all
| that plastic were broken down by fungus (or incinerated). We
| release around 35 _billion_ tons of CO2 every year from burning
| fossil fuel.
| webprofusion wrote:
| So don't release it directly to the atmosphere, it has
| industrial uses.
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S254243511...
| swagasaurus-rex wrote:
| > breakdown of PE by P. album occurs at a rate of about 0.05 per
| cent per day
|
| At what rate does all the plastic in the world start to soften
| and crumble?
| sage92 wrote:
| ```
|
| total_plastic = 8.3e9 # total plastic in tons degradation_rate
| = 0.05 # degradation rate per day in percentage
|
| # Calculation of daily degradation in tons daily_degradation =
| total_plastic * degradation_rate / 100
|
| # Estimation of time taken to degrade all plastic in days
| total_days = total_plastic / daily_degradation
|
| # Conversion of total days to years total_years = total_days /
| 365
|
| # Print the result print(f"It would take approximately
| {total_years:.2f} years to degrade all the plastic.")
|
| ```
|
| It would take approximately 5.48 years to degrade all the
| plastic.
| akie wrote:
| That's... wrong? The amount of plastic would decrease every
| day (assuming no new production), so 0.05% of that amount
| would not be a constant number. Your daily_degradation is
| incorrect.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| it's chatgpt of course it's wrong
| IanCal wrote:
| It's also not reasonable to assume that a growing organism
| will break down a smaller amount of stuff every day.
| lanternfish wrote:
| Review exponential functions.
| bn-l wrote:
| Yeah. Use the compounding interest rate function with the
| eat/expel/eat period.
| tredigi wrote:
| I hope you don't estimate the earnings from your investments
| that way.
|
| But +1 on f-string use.
| userbinator wrote:
| PE is a very-long-chain saturated hydrocarbon, so it would not be
| surprising if this fungus will also be able to "burn" other
| petroleum products too.
|
| _Finding plastic-degrading organisms is urgent._
|
| Is it?
| gitaarik wrote:
| Do you have any other genius ideas on how to deal with an
| exponentially growing waste product that doesn't seem to easily
| break down naturally and gets shredded into smaller pieces
| eventually ending up in the environment as micro particles and
| get into our food and bodies and affect our and our
| environment's health?
| userbinator wrote:
| _and affect our and our environment 's health?_
|
| Zero concrete evidence. Lots of vague handwaving and
| paranoia.
| gitaarik wrote:
| Well everything is relative of course, but from a human
| perspective, an environment can be "unhealthy", and that is
| what we ultimately care about, right?
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| It seems like only a matter of time before this spreads
| uncontrollably, consuming all plastic in the world.
| max-ibel wrote:
| That would make a great sci-fi thriller, if it doesn't already
| exist:)
| pfdietz wrote:
| Mutant 59: The Plastic Eater
| p1mrx wrote:
| That happens in The Andromeda Strain, but they don't really
| explore the implications.
| Melatonic wrote:
| This is what I'm afraid of - it's all great when the fungus is
| only in a landfill or the ocean but what happens if it gets
| inside my car ? Etc etc
| ssijak wrote:
| Why dont they grow them st land fills
| can16358p wrote:
| While it's a great discovery, I'm concerned that this will be
| abused by plastic manufacturers as an excuse to produce more
| plastics and talk about "how harmless" plastics are as "they
| break down organically by fungi" anyway.
| MOARDONGZPLZ wrote:
| Do you get the sense that the plastic manufacturers are
| limiting production in any whatsoever now?
| StimDeck wrote:
| Exactly. If anything, they have every plan to increase
| production already.
| thiagocsf wrote:
| As long as we keep buying stuff wrapped in plastic, someone
| needs to keep making more of it.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| Of course, I buy things wrapped un plastic because I love
| plastic and not because there's no available alternative
| ...
|
| So convenient to blame the consumer.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Most people fail to understand how useful plastic is
| because they never lived in a time before plastics.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| "most people fail to understand how useful leaded
| gasoline is because they never lived in a time without
| it"
| _flux wrote:
| As I understand it, lead in gasoline was used for motor
| longetivity, but other approaches have been invented to
| reduce pollution. So now we use only (or just mostly?)
| unleaded gasoline, which is used basically the same as
| leaded.
|
| What's your microplastic-free alternative to replace most
| uses of plastic? Microplasticless plastic that would work
| for all plastic use cases doesn't exist, as far I know.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| It was to reduce knock which was solved with electronic
| fuel injection.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| Idk what modern injection can do for that, but it wasn't
| even needed, the original solution was to use other
| additives instead of lead.
| serf wrote:
| every modern injection system that has authority over
| ignition and cam timing can monitor knock via microphone
| and adjust accordingly.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| You don't need a one-size-fits-all solution to all
| problems at once. But most plastic use have alternative
| solutions, if you are willing to change industrial
| practices (plastic-less supply chains will look very
| different for instance).
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| The problem is plastic is not one thing but an entire
| category of materials. There are plenty of places
| plastics can be designed out but there's also an awful
| lot where it's never going to be possible to replace. For
| example operating rooms have huge trash bins because
| everything comes plastic wrapped for sterility.
| mattkrause wrote:
| Even in ORs, there are options for using less plastic
| use. For example, drapes can be single-use (paper-lined
| plastic in a plastic pouch) or fabric (wrapped in more
| fabric and autoclaved).
|
| I agree that getting to _zero_ plastic is probably
| impossible---it has amazingly useful properties for some
| applications---but it's also used for convenience and
| other mundane reasons (e.g., less liability if you
| offload sterilization to the manufacturer).
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > For example operating rooms have huge trash bins
| because everything comes plastic wrapped for sterility.
|
| First of all we don't need disposable plastic for that...
| And wrapping it in Kraft paper would work exactly the
| same way!
| _flux wrote:
| There are, and we do use them, more and more every day
| (from my simple consumer point of view), but it's much
| more difficult to dictate that "everyone" must switch to
| non-microplastic solutions, like it seems to have been
| possible with gasoline.
|
| What would that kind of legislation look like? It would
| be bound be huge, have negative non-intended
| consequences, and loopholes.
|
| Maybe a global plastic tax could function as a guiding
| force, but even that has the negative consequence
| increasing the costs of stuff that just doesn't have
| alternatives. It would funnel money towards developing
| plastic-free products.
|
| But getting everyone onboard with that is difficult--and
| I presume it's difficult to put a fair plastic tax for
| imported products.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > and loopholes.
|
| This is an argument that comes again and again when
| discussing government intervention and really baffles me:
| don't you laissez-faire guys really don't realize that a
| "loophole" is still much tinier than a completely open
| door?!
| _flux wrote:
| Loophole can be small, but when exploited properly, an
| elephant can walk right through it. And you also chose to
| ignore the part about unintended consequences..
|
| All it really takes to even consider moving into this
| direction is to propose a solution to this. "Stop
| plastic" is not it due to practical reasons. I wouldn't
| know what a proper solution would be, nor would I have
| the expertice to recognize one when proposed, but is
| there even a realistic proposal?
| mrguyorama wrote:
| >lead in gasoline was used for motor longetivity
|
| Nope. Tetra-Ethyl lead as a fuel additive, primarily for
| octane boosting, was invented as a "cheaper alternative"
| to what would normally be used to boost octane: Ethanol.
| Surely for only coincidental reasons, having a chemical
| product that they could patent and prevent anyone else
| from manufacturing made them a whole lot more money than
| using Ethanol which anyone could make and market and
| compete.
|
| Leaded gas was a fucking profit motivated thing.
|
| The point of us putting ethanol in gas is multifaceted,
| but not even remotely about climate change: The octane
| booster we used after we removed was MTBE. MTBE had a
| problem where it would constantly leak out of fuel
| storage and poison families, cause birth defects, you
| know, toxic shit. So we FINALLY just said fuck it, put
| ethanol in gas like we should have been doing since the
| 20s.
|
| Other effects it had: Immediately reduce US gasoline
| usage by 10%. Subsidy to farmers.
| throwaway05294 wrote:
| Unfortunately the consumer is the only one who can
| influence the manufacturers by choosing alternatives.
| Large companies rarely actually care about the
| environmental effects when they have a cheaper
| alternative.
|
| I think many underestimate the influence consumers can
| have on the manufacturers. In some product categories,
| they have an option to choose a better alternative. If
| more did that, the manufacturers in other industries
| would see that there is a first mover advantage where
| they can grow their market share by reducing plastic
| usage. More R&D would be spent finding alternatives and
| the world as a whole would be improved.
|
| But it all starts with us choosing alternatives whenever
| possible. If enough consumers do that, the other
| manufacturers will improve because it impacts their
| revenue.
| jcynix wrote:
| A large part of microplastics found in aquatic
| environments is abraison from car tires. So which
| alternative do you suggest?
|
| https://www.sciencenews.org/article/car-tires-and-brake-
| pads...
|
| https://theconversation.com/how-your-car-sheds-
| microplastics...
|
| https://microplastics.springeropen.com/track/pdf/10.1186/
| s43...
| throwaway05294 wrote:
| As I mentioned, the manufacturers will need to spend
| money on R&D to develop alternatives. Right now the tire
| manufacturers don't have any incentive because there's no
| financial benefit.
|
| Even though consumers don't have a choice when they buy
| tires _today_ , other products have cleaner alternatives.
| If I was a manufacturer of tires and saw consumers
| consistently choosing cleaner products when possible, I
| would have an incentive to see if I could reduce the
| pollution, because I would gain market share. The first
| manufacturer would sell more tires and others would need
| to follow. Not enough consumers make this choice today to
| make up the cost of new technologies.
| alt227 wrote:
| Theres no need for R&D. Real rubber tyres are
| environmentally friendly as the abrasion particles are
| natural. They are much better performing in terms of
| grip, but just more expensivce to produce. IIRC the
| military use real rubber tyres still because of their
| longer life and better performance.
|
| If people were willing to pay more for their tyres then
| this would be a non issue.
| mrob wrote:
| Pure natural rubber has poor ozone resistance. It will
| need stabilizing additives, and at least one of these
| (6PPD) has been found to have toxicity problems.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_cracking
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6PPD#Environmental_impact
| scrollaway wrote:
| Cycling and metros?
| alt227 wrote:
| Not possible or practical in rural areas.
| pietervdvn wrote:
| Bullshit. Regulation is what has a bogger influence.
|
| Within the group of consumers, there will always be only
| a small (if not neglible) fraction that does care and has
| the means for a boycott.
|
| A bit of organized activism can force regulation and will
| have a way bigger impact.
| throwaway05294 wrote:
| In a well functioning country, regulation is one of the
| best ways to control this.
|
| Better regulation would force the manufacturers to spend
| R&D on alternatives and push down the prices so that the
| rest of the world can also afford a cleaner alternative.
| Even if that takes time, we would at least have a huge
| reduction until we have the right tech at an affordable
| price for the developing world.
|
| The world is a huge place and many countries will never
| have good regulations due to corruption/lobbyists and
| continue to pollute. The only way I see regulations would
| work is if the first world governments, which are the
| largest consumers, were willing to impose import
| restrictions, but that would go against the ideology
| behind the global market. It would also risk retaliation
| where the affected country could block exports of rare
| earth minerals and other critical resources.
|
| The US market is one of the largest influencers, and
| would need to get on board. I'm not an American, but
| given the political climate in the US right now I doubt
| they could regulate it effectively.
| alt227 wrote:
| I buy all my food loose and not wrapped in plastic, its
| really not hard just dont go to supermarkets.
| croes wrote:
| Those stores don't exist everywhere and usually the
| prices are higher.
| zo1 wrote:
| But in a lot of other places, they're far cheaper than
| the supermarkets. It works the other way sometimes, and I
| think we need to examine why. My best off-the-cuff theory
| to it would be some sort of perverse government
| incentive.
|
| The same government that makes incentives that added all
| that extra driving, transportation, storage, packaging,
| etc to the "natural food" because they think farming and
| storing livestock within X-feet of a people-zoned area is
| dangerous and shouldn't be allowed. Next they complain
| "oh lets fix these food islands that we created in the
| first place" or "oh please let us regulate these evil
| companies that use so much bad plastic packaging because
| we told them not to sell food that "might" be off after
| expiry so they have to use plastic and other such devices
| to sell you absolutely pristine and non-contaminated
| food".
|
| The point in my rambling is that it's such a complicated
| problem, but the government sits at the heart of it. Both
| as a cause and a potential solution, unfortunately.
| garbagewoman wrote:
| The demand is affected by consumer preferences. The
| manufacturers are behind recycling initiatives, so they
| understand that
| Swizec wrote:
| > Do you get the sense that the plastic manufacturers are
| limiting production in any whatsoever now?
|
| More and more stuff I buy, especially from higher end brands,
| comes packaged in purely cardboard packaging with no plastic.
| Not even tape or plastic bits to hold it together. They even
| brag about this in some of their marketing.
|
| Paper is nice because you can put the packaging in either
| recycling or compost depending which bin has more space that
| week.
| coffeecantcode wrote:
| While I see your point and without defending the lackluster
| recycling culture in America, filling landfills with paper
| products is still better than plastic products, no?
| Ekaros wrote:
| Could in theory work as carbon sequestration. Not
| effective one, but still.
| coffeecantcode wrote:
| I guess I just see it as something with the potential to
| biodegrade within my lifetime as opposed to many many
| lifetimes in the future. I'm no climate scientist,
| genuinely curious if that mentality is incorrect or not.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| The most effective sequestration is to store carbon
| underground where it can't diffuse. The simplest way to
| put things underground is as a fluid. Some kind of fluid
| that's pure carbon. This pretty much just brings us back
| to pumping oil in reverse.
| Swizec wrote:
| Yes this is strictly better. I'm saying it's a good thing
| that more things come packaged in cardboard than plastic
| these days and I'm highlighting that this is a growing
| trend especially in high-end products because those
| consumers care more
| bn-l wrote:
| A lot of "paper" is coated or dipped in plastic (like the
| drinking straws).
| alt227 wrote:
| Historically it was dipped in wax, and a lot of places
| like butchers will still use wax paper instead of
| plastic.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| The wax in wax paper is also a petroleum product.
| yfw wrote:
| Doesn't have to be. Can be vegetable or bees
| alt227 wrote:
| We use bees wax paper and cloth in the house instead of
| cling film/plastic wrap and baggies. Its easily washable
| and reuesable, everyone should use it and there would be
| a lot less plastic waste.
| userbinator wrote:
| I'm more concerned with whether it may start spreading beyond
| the ocean and causing pandemic-scale damage, although
| fortunately it seems slow. There is already dystopian sci-fi
| about similar themes.
| bdamm wrote:
| Nanoplastic and microplastics are basically everywhere now.
| So there's no need to wait, your concern is already realized.
| radarsat1 wrote:
| As long as it's not an efficient process then you have a point.
| But, let's say some very efficient way to clean up and break
| down plastic was discovered. Then, wouldn't the manufacturers
| actually have a point? In that case it indeed _would_ be
| harmless and we could enjoy the conveniences of it while being
| relatively certain we can then dispose of it safely. So you
| wouldn 't call it an "abuse" in this case.
| cess11 wrote:
| So, like, how do you imagine fungi could turn the plastic
| back into oil and down into the crust? Is your line of
| inquiry possibly, actually worthwhile?
| tredigi wrote:
| Just because a fungus eventually breaks it down doesn't imply
| that it's "harmless". It can (and does) still accumulate in
| organisms and has many undesirable effects, including the
| human body. It can s easily end up in the food chain as long
| as it's not broken down, including areas where the fungus is
| not effective, which are plenty.
|
| The only difference such a fungus can make is that it could
| break down in certain pockets in nature in the long run.
| radarsat1 wrote:
| Yes, I see your point here. I think most objections to
| plastic including my own are about the longevity of its
| effects on ecosystems, but local, short term effects on
| health are equally problematic.
| theK wrote:
| The article talks about how this one fungus found in the
| depths of the sea can break down PE (polyethylene) plastics.
| The biggest problem with combating ocean plastic is
| deployment of any solution. The seas are vast and trash,
| while a huge problem, is still relatively sparse within them.
|
| It would be great to see if this fungus can be deployed on
| land at large enough scale to take care of, say, a whole
| regions PEs. That way we could get somewhere.
| timeon wrote:
| Green-washing is not about real scenario. It only needs the
| perceived story.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| I'm more worried about the longterm. As organisms get better at
| breaking down plastic manufacturers will start putting nasty
| chemicals in plastics to prevent premature breakdown.
| hinkley wrote:
| And things that kill fungi tend to also kill us. Fungicides
| quite often cause liver damage.
| quonn wrote:
| > https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8529939/
|
| Sure, but only as long as "quite often" means "almost
| never".
| hinkley wrote:
| You're talking about antifungals approved for human
| consumption.
|
| I wonder why they were approved for human consumption?
| therobots927 wrote:
| That's why we need increased government oversight of
| corporate behavior in general. Fingers crossed this becomes
| politically feasible as younger generations enter a greater
| position of power. I have hope that these externalities can
| be solved as long as the root cause of unregulated money
| chasing is addressed.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| The problem is that younger generations are just as
| impressionable as previous ones, but now they have a
| surveillance state and advertising apperatus aimed squarely
| at them.
|
| So now young men are pissed at the world for being not a
| fairyland like they were promised, and are getting
| absolutely riled up by grifters who are the first step in
| the right wing recruitment funnel and now millions of young
| men think the reason the world sucks is women, immigrants,
| and having emotions.
|
| Not a great outcome.
| poopcat wrote:
| Considering how plastic manufacturers turned recycling into the
| ultimate false hope, I agree with you. I try to be mindful
| about my plastic consumption but it is everywhere.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/15/recycling-pl...
| gooseyman wrote:
| Jervons Paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
| thesnide wrote:
| Life finds a way.
| mlsu wrote:
| Plastics are a store of energy. They could be used to sustain
| life, once evolution catches up. That's why I don't feel
| particularly bad about throwing plastic into the landfill. I'm
| taking an energy loan out against evolution; eventually,
| evolution will recoup it.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| No guarantee that the evolution that takes care of plastics
| results in a more livable world for humans though (not to
| mention plastics that we don't want crumbling suddenly having
| issues)
| selcuka wrote:
| What is so special about humans? I, for one, welcome our
| plastic eating overlords.
| colordrops wrote:
| What is so special is that we are them. Until we are no
| longer humans, we should look out for our own. Unless you
| have somehow overcome self-preservation and suffering. I
| haven't. I never understood this "what is special about
| humans" argument. Obviously we should do our best to be
| good stewards of the environment but that shouldn't ignore
| our own survival.
| mlsu wrote:
| Yes, certainly. The value of plastics is incalculable.
| (Personally, if there were a plastic-eating bacteria
| introduced tomorrow, I would be dead within the week, rather
| than dead within a month or two like most people).
|
| I don't really feel bad about plastics, mostly I feel bad
| about the egregious stuff -- car tires, fishing gear -- stuff
| that does not end up in the landfill most of all, because it
| cannot be segregated from the environment.
| n0n0n4t0r wrote:
| That's funny: do you know why there is petroleum at all? When
| plants evolved to have line, they where able to become trees.
|
| Sadly, no bacteria was able to decompose linine. It took a
| looooot of time (I don't remember how much, but a whole lot).
| So trees wouldn't decompose when falling down, so they would
| grow on top of each other, burying the oldest one more and
| more. And the end, you have wood very deep, under a lot of
| pressure and I'm a hot environment: it created the petroleum.
|
| So what you're expecting can take millions of year and it would
| be ironic if petroleum had to be twice in such a cycle.
| ackfoobar wrote:
| I guess the speech-to-text failed. Do you mean "lignin"?
| mlsu wrote:
| Yes, indeed. It took a while, but not that long in the grand
| scheme. A few million years; plastic is more concentrated and
| more delicious, energy-wise.
|
| I forgot to mention my theory, which is that we will be the
| ones who dig up the plastic to either recycle it or use it
| for its energy -- it will have been conveniently concentrated
| in landfills after all :)
| andy_ppp wrote:
| What if the current oilfields are compressed plastic from
| an extinct civilisation? ;-)
| mlsu wrote:
| I'd love to ask them why they made so much of it, and why
| we are making the same mistake.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| You answered your own question...
| Melatonic wrote:
| Fungi always doing the hard work !
| CHsurfer wrote:
| Is this process generating the microplastics? If so then maybe
| it's not such a great way to post process our litter.
| riffraff wrote:
| The article says carbon contained in the plastic is released so
| it seems it's a molecular level breakdown. It'd be like rust on
| an old nail, eating it's way from the outside.
| localfirst wrote:
| i remember plastic bags would also disintegrate over long period
| of time
| anukin wrote:
| I have heard these kind of news for a while now. Fungus breaks
| plastic. Worms eat plastic. Nothing ever seems to happen to
| plastic though. Why?
| anon123987456 wrote:
| Because then another question arises: what breaks down the
| fungus?
|
| Edit:
|
| This question is serious. If this fungus would eat all that
| plastic, this would introduce a huge amount of new life in the
| ocean with unknown effects to the ecosystem. We would replace
| one problem with another.
| zoky wrote:
| Quis funguset ipsos funguses?
| HenryBemis wrote:
| I had the EXACT same thought. If the fungi eats plastic, what
| eats the fungi? I find this a veri legitimate question.
|
| I assume/hope that it doesn't turn/get converted to a
| plasticofungi that cannot be eaten by fish/etc. This would
| only reshape the pollution, not eliminate it.
|
| I didn't find an answer to this in this specific article; I
| hope it will be covered somewhere else.
| gitaarik wrote:
| Well, the fungi "breaks down plastic", which means that it
| converts it into other types of molecules. Just plants use
| C02 + H20 + sunlight in photosynthesis to convert it into
| O2 + glucose.
|
| If we could break down the molecules ourselves we would
| have done it already, but it's not easy to do that. That is
| why we benefit from these natural occurring organisms that
| break them down and leave a more useful byproduct (to us).
| Although nano technology can eventually give us the ability
| to do this in a controlled way.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| Plastic-eating whatever evolves in environments of extremely
| high concentration of plastic and unavailability of anything
| else. As soon as anything else is available, the plastic-eating
| thing evolves back to eating something else.
|
| If you had nothing to eat you'd also give plastic a try, and
| you could miraculously be the chosen one who can break down
| plastic, but you'd switch back to normal food as soon as
| possible.
| wwilim wrote:
| That is oddly reassuring, otherwise I would be very worried
| about the fungus getting out of the sea and onto land
| marcosdumay wrote:
| It's the same dynamic as with antibiotics resistant
| bacteria. Given enough time, something will probably appear
| that does not pay a high price to digest plastic (or can
| even use the mechanism for other material), and doesn't
| evolve back when other food is available.
|
| If it's bacteria, then soon the entire world will be full
| of plastic-digesting bacteria. If it's fungus, it will
| start to appear here and there at random.
| mattkrause wrote:
| Many of the plastic-eating microbes require very specific
| conditions: finely shredded material, high temperatures (55C or
| more), carefully-controlled pH, etc.
|
| These generally won't occur outside of a bioreactor, so you're
| not going to see them attacking random plastics in your house.
| jcynix wrote:
| OK, this fungus breaks down polyethylene, which might even find a
| second use as fuel in combined heat and power stations.
|
| But a large part of microplastics found in aquatic environments
| is abraison from car tires. So we need more and different fungi
| ...
|
| [sciencenews](https://www.sciencenews.org/article/car-tires-and-
| brake-pads...)
|
| [theconversation](https://theconversation.com/how-your-car-sheds-
| microplastics...)
|
| [springeropen](https://microplastics.springeropen.com/track/pdf/1
| 0.1186/s43...)
| hinkley wrote:
| And polyester from clothing.
|
| I don't know what the fuck Patagonia thinks they're doing
| switching to recycled polyester to make their clothing more
| environmental.
| shoulderfake wrote:
| Its cheaper.
| gpvos wrote:
| Is it? I've always heard recycled plastic is more expensive
| than new.
| hinkley wrote:
| They're also frequently weird blends like
| hemp/poly/cotton and those can't be cheap to produce.
| bombela wrote:
| Money. They are making money. That's what it is, and you know
| it.
| therobots927 wrote:
| As much as I like their clothes I can't say I'm a fan of
| their holier than thou attitude. For example when the
| founder "gave the company away" but was pretty obviously
| just setting up a tax dodging structure. It's like pick a
| lane dude, you can't be a billionaire and a saint in this
| life.
| bitcoin_anon wrote:
| Although it may be against popular opinion, I believe
| making billions without a healthy stock of virtues is
| unlikely.
| therobots927 wrote:
| Well you just deliberately moved the goalposts. I said
| billionaires are not saints. You said they have "virtues"
| by which I assume you mean intelligence and work ethic.
| Character traits that are typically _not_ included in the
| definition of a _saint_.
| hinkley wrote:
| Agreed. A "healthy stock of virtues" does not mean a
| stock of healthy virtues.
|
| We need a few more decades of inflation before anyone can
| rightly claim to become a billionaire without fucking
| people over.
| bitcoin_anon wrote:
| It seems like you are moving the goal posts.
|
| > Virtue: Positive trait or quality deemed to be morally
| good
|
| Saints were certainly concerned with virtues.
| teachrdan wrote:
| Am I missing something? If the polyester is recycled, then it
| was going to be disposed of -- and ultimately break down --
| anyway.
|
| Using recycled materials of any sort reduces the consumption
| of new materials. This is a net positive for the environment,
| absent any extremes in the use of recycled materials. (i.e.
| extreme energy consumption or harmful chemicals used in the
| recycling process)
|
| Cotton is what most people think of as a natural fiber, and
| even its use can entail a high environmental cost.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-023-00476-z
| hinkley wrote:
| Landfilled polyester doesn't end up as microplastics.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Let's say you have a fishing net that is end-of-life. It can
| be discarded, in which case it will break down over time into
| microplastics etc., in the ocean or a landfill.
|
| Or it can be recycled, in which case most of the plastic in
| the net is fixed into a new physical object.
|
| The second one seems better to me than the first one. Do you
| disagree? Or is your objection to the continued use of
| plastics in clothing at all?
| bsza wrote:
| ... or stop using cars for personal transportation where other
| options are available.
| 7speter wrote:
| Trains have brakes, too. And horses... well, I guess we can
| handle cholera these days.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| The vast majority of braking done by trains is electrical,
| ie "regenerative" except lots of trains just burn the
| generated power in a grid of resistors and dump the heat.
|
| If every mile human beings moved in cars was replaced with
| two miles taken by train, the world would be a less
| polluted place.
| nanomonkey wrote:
| I believe most modern trains use regenerative braking for
| the majority of their deceleration. At least the hybrid and
| electric ones.
| osmsucks wrote:
| One train can move many people at once (especially for peak
| commute times when people would be driving single-occupancy
| cars just to get to an office). It suffer from similar
| problems, but it's much more efficient at the same task.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Not feasible outside the metro areas of only the biggest
| cities in the US. I can tell you're from one of those cities
| because you act as if most people have a choice. We don't.
| bsza wrote:
| I'm from a small European town. And I did say "where other
| options are available", so I don't get where your hostility
| is coming from.
| raisedbyninjas wrote:
| The scale of tire tread that just gets washed down into
| waterways seems staggering. It's probably no more egregious
| than other pollution sources though.
|
| Anyway, the napkin math is 20 million tons of tires
| manufactured per year. If 1% of that is lost as worn down tread
| (or sidewalls depending on the driver), then that is 200,000
| tons of tire compound particles dispersed into the environment
| per year.
| jdthedisciple wrote:
| I have increasingly found myself thinking lately that perhaps it
| is _fungi_ of anything in fact, that are able to provide the
| ultimate solutions to many of the World 's biggest issues but
| even to treating certain diseases ...
| lynguist wrote:
| It's not necessarily only good news.
|
| The golden age of plastic that we live in allows for food
| packaging that cannot be penetrated by microorganisms, which in
| turn increases shelf life of some produce from like half a week
| to multiple weeks.
|
| Once there are more such microorganisms in the next one hundred
| years we might have problems packaging our food.
|
| And plastic is in essence a multi-step "life process" of crude
| oil: Instead of incinerating heating oil for our houses, plastic
| lives a first life as packaging, and then gets incinerated and
| provides heat over communal heating - ideally.
|
| Of course, the problem is when it ends up in the water instead of
| being burned.
| mibsl wrote:
| There is still glass (and silicone?).
| xxs wrote:
| glass is a lot heavier and way more expensive (glass is made
| out of silicon).
|
| There are a lot of different types of plastics the common
| ones use in packaging are LE-PE (light density polyethylene)
| and PP (polypropylene). They are both thermoplastic, they
| melt then heated. Silicone is also a form of plastic, it's
| thermoset (it chars effectively and it doesn't melt) - and
| it's awfully expensive. There are other plastic, e.g. nylon
| (PA6) that are still expensive but much cheaper than
| silicone.
| mrob wrote:
| Silicone rubber has high gas permeability. This makes it good
| for contact lenses, but bad for food packaging.
| konschubert wrote:
| > the problem is when it ends up in the water instead of being
| burned
|
| And that is entirely a question of waste management.
|
| The plastic straw that the EU just outlawed would never have
| ended up in the ocean. Meanwhile, plastic gets dumped into
| rivers by the truckloads - outside the EU.
| scrollaway wrote:
| I swear the "plastic straw" argument is the absolute literal
| straw man argument.
|
| The EU didn't outlaw "plastic straws", it outlawed a range of
| things, one of which is the plastic straw. But then why do
| plastic straws always come up? Because this is also in
| response to a video of a turtle in pain with a plastic straw
| up its nose (so yes it did end up in the ocean).
|
| And creating less single use products is a step of waste
| management by the way. Now I'm not particularly in favour of
| paper straws, but bamboo straws have taken off as a
| replacement and that's a rather good thing I would say.
|
| But again this is only about straws because you made it about
| straws. The same applies to many other single use plastics.
| exe34 wrote:
| If you left his plastic straw alone, he wouldn't have to
| make it about straws, would he? Now all he has is a soggy
| paper straw that he got from a plastic wrapping.
| sva_ wrote:
| > so yes it did end up in the ocean
|
| It was a European plastic straw? Was there an address on
| it, or how can you tell?
|
| The point the person you responded to was making wasn't
| about plastic straws, but rather about the fact that
| European trash almost never lands in the ocean:
| https://ourworldindata.org/ocean-plastics
| konschubert wrote:
| It's not a strawman because the EU actually did rule out
| plastic straws.
|
| And as a parent, I can assure you that I get reminded of
| this on a weekly basis.
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| As a parent in EU, I bought the reusable silicone straws,
| those are available and kids don't mind.
| cc81 wrote:
| Plastic straws come because the replacements tend to be bad
| (even if I assume they have gotten better over time).
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| The way to make their replacements even better over time
| is to discourage use of plastic. So this seems like a
| pretty good policy, even if there is a tiny bit of (the
| world's most minor amount of) pain during the transition.
| We should ban more single-use plastic.
| aardvarkr wrote:
| In order to not go soggy so quickly many paper straws are
| pfas coated. Then this ends up in the environment.
| lukan wrote:
| "We should ban more single-use plastic."
|
| We should ban more single-use _non biodegradable_
| plastic.
|
| I like the single use biodegradable plastic bag for
| example, where I can have the organic compost inside, so
| less mess everywhere.
|
| Those should be standard. But currently they are way more
| expensive. Standard plastic from oil is cheap.
| sandos wrote:
| Wait, a _standard plastic bag_ for compost?
|
| Why not, you know, paper?
| lukan wrote:
| Because paper leaks?
|
| And this type of plastic does not. After some months it
| will, but that is the idea.
| flurdy wrote:
| I just buy a bunch of these biodegradable PLA straws
| instead. They work well https://amzn.eu/d/dKIyKxE.
|
| Not missed the old plastic straws apart from when at a
| burger joint that gives you the useless paper ones. The
| bagasse and PLA straws do not disintegrate as quickly and
| work as well as the old ones.
|
| Whether they are actually more environmentally friendly
| is another discussion.
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| > it did end up in the ocean
|
| How would you feel if you didn't have breakfast this
| morning?
| sirsinsalot wrote:
| I order to not go soggy so quickly many paper straws are
| pfas coated. Then this ends up in the environment.
| wussboy wrote:
| Ffs please tell me you are joking
| edgyquant wrote:
| Because plastic straws are something that people run into
| frequently so when they are gone it's very noticeable to
| everyone
| infecto wrote:
| I don't think its a straw man so much as the alternatives
| to plastic straws are worse. One of those short-sighted
| policies that ends up being worse.
| timeon wrote:
| No-straw alternative is not worse.
| infecto wrote:
| That is not what happened though so its a fairy tale
| outcome.
| MarkusWandel wrote:
| Paper straws are some of the worst "greenwashing" I've ever
| seen. I most frequently encounter them for McDonalds
| drinks, where the cup and lid are solid plastic, but the
| straw whose weight (in plastic) would have been maybe 2-3%
| of the whole assembly has been replaced with something that
| invariably goes soggy before the drink is finished.
| Meanwhile at the grocery store I see boxes of... straws. As
| in, actual straw, the original material. Haven't
| encountered those in actual use yet, though.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > The plastic straw that the EU just outlawed would never
| have ended up in the ocean.
|
| A significant amount of plastic straws and bottle caps
| actually _did_ up at least in the rivers - a single look at
| how the Isar in Munich looks after a party summer night is
| enough evidence - and what enters the Isar, Danube or any
| other river will eventually end up in the ocean or get stuck
| in a major lake where it degrades, gets eaten by fish and
| then ends up in humans when we eat the fish.
|
| Metal bottle caps can at least be fished out by magnets and
| recycled, but there's no way to capture plastic particles
| yet.
|
| And that does _not_ take into account all the plastics trash
| that gets shipped overseas to some piss poor Asian or African
| country, where it gets sorted, and all the refuse just gets
| dumped on some landfill where it eventually gets washed into
| the ocean by rainfall, or it gets incinerated where it
| creates absurdly toxic combustion products.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Unless your kitchen is flooded, plastic food packaging
| generally doesn't face the sort of warm, wet environments
| needed for most fungi and microorganisms to grow. (The
| sterilized and/or nutrient-deficient _insides_ of food
| packaging doesn 't count.)
|
| Marine uses of plastic (fishing nets, ropes, swimwear, buoys,
| etc.) seem likely to be impacted first. Along with
| infrastructure (sump pumps, farm irrigation equipment, ...).
| Then general outdoor uses.
| sva_ wrote:
| What if you live in a humid, warm, tropical environment?
| bell-cot wrote:
| Do things which old-fashioned fungi can break down, given
| time and water - physical books, wood furniture, natural
| fiber clothing - need any special treatments to survive in
| your environment?
|
| Figure that these plastic-rotting fungi won't be all that
| much different from the ones you're familiar with. This is
| not some SciFi "and the Nanotech Gray Goo ate the entire
| earth in a week" story.
| bregma wrote:
| > This is not some SciFi "and the Nanotech Gray Goo ate
| the entire earth in a week" story.
|
| Not yet.
| bell-cot wrote:
| "Life Finds a Way, Inc." has had a planet-sized
| laboratory, running its Natural Mutation Engine 24x7x365,
| for a billion-ish years now. But no Gray Goo has actually
| evolved, and taken over the Earth.
|
| Perhaps, "Gray Goo" is just another cool-sounding trope,
| and not a real-world possibility?
| immibis wrote:
| Grey Goo has evolved in many incarnations. First was
| "unicellular life" edition. Most recently the planet has
| been taken over by "humans".
| jerf wrote:
| Part of the Grey Goo memeset is that the goo is an
| unstoppable apex predator that doesn't just tweak the
| ecological balance a bit in a conventional ecological
| relationship, but permanently establishes an ecological
| balance of 100% Grey Goo.
|
| This has not happened, not even "humans".
| saulpw wrote:
| Not yet, but the the human population has more than
| doubled since 1970, while the number of other vertebrates
| has halved. It's like biomass is conserved, and human
| growth (both in number and in waistlines) is us
| systematically converting biomass into ourselves.
|
| In 100 more years when the only vertebrates that aren't
| extinct or endangered are humans and our livestock and
| pets, will that be Grey Goo-like enough for you? Or does
| it only count if we manage to exterminate the insects and
| lower-order species too?
|
| Because an "unstoppable apex predator" could never become
| 100% Grey Goo, as it still needs something to eat!
|
| https://xkcd.com/1338/
| undersuit wrote:
| >Because an "unstoppable apex predator" could never
| become 100% Grey Goo, as it still needs something to eat!
|
| Grey Goo doesn't consume for energy but for mass; energy
| needs are plot devices.
|
| I'd argue the majority of human food consumption is for
| energy not mass so we can't approach the 100% mass of a
| grey goo event.
| lanstin wrote:
| We are the grey goo! Excellent idea.
| Retric wrote:
| Generally "Grey Goo" science fiction ignores the lack of
| metals in the environment thus preventing the grey in
| Grey Goo as well as energy constraints etc.
|
| However, simply outcompeting organic life using the same
| atomic building blocks would be a real problem for
| existing life forms like humans.
| roughly wrote:
| Cyanobacteria might be the closest we've come.
| undersuit wrote:
| Your example was a little too over my head and I started
| Googling for this simulator I might not have played with.
| jerf wrote:
| You can see a real-world of this in a very common building
| material, "wood". There's entire sub-ecosystems dedicated to
| breaking this material down... yet you can safely use it to
| build structures that can stand for a long time, dozens or
| even hundreds of times longer than the breakdown time of the
| material in the wild, without the wood breaking down, as long
| as you maintain the structure, which mostly involves keeping
| the wood dry. These entire subecosystems for breaking down
| wood have fundamental chemical and energetic prerequisites in
| order to do their work, they are not just ambiently and
| actively roaming the Earth seeking out that which they may
| devour and actively creating the circumstances they can do it
| in.
|
| So I'm not worried about bacteria learning how to break
| plastic down in the middle of the ocean getting released into
| the grocery store one day and in mere hours the entire store
| is spoiled and destroyed. It would really just become another
| engineering consideration for materials that already have a
| lot of such considerations.
| kennethwolters wrote:
| IMO petroleum scattering around earth as CO2 damages earth less
| than petroleum scattering around earth as a petroleum-based
| solid. Both is bad tho - can't mix layers that are not meant to
| meet.
| quonn wrote:
| > gets incinerated and provides heat over communal heating -
| ideally.
|
| How is it ideal to increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere
| even further?
| bsza wrote:
| So does any microorganism that can break down plastic, but
| without heating your home.
| lukan wrote:
| They usually do not extract the oil from deep underground,
| like we do.
| bsza wrote:
| The argument is between burning already existing plastic
| vs letting it rot.
| adwn wrote:
| Presumably OP meant that if plastics are incinerated anyway,
| it's better to get some additional use out of that.
| zo1 wrote:
| If it's a controlled incineration with the appropriate
| filters and capture mechanisms, I doubt it's that bad.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Only 6% of the world's petrochemical usage is to make
| plastic. If we decarbonize everything else but merely burn
| every gram of plastic we produce, that's a win, both from a
| climate change perspective and from a plastic waste
| perspective.
|
| Proper incineration is probably the most reliable, most
| effective way to deal with human waste.
|
| Well made and managed landfills are also perfectly capable of
| dealing with human waste, but they are a long term project,
| and there's a lot of time for a dumb management or politician
| to decide you don't need to fund it as well and now a hundred
| years of hard work to protect the environment goes down the
| drain when your now improperly managed landfill is basically
| a superfund site.
|
| There's less chance for one idiot to do long term damage with
| incineration.
| Gravityloss wrote:
| We can then make the packaging out of nanodiamond film. Eat
| that, fungus!
|
| 100 years later the last organism on the planet dies,
| suffocating under nanodiamond film...
| iamgopal wrote:
| aluminium is the best choice for packaging, for most food
| products.
| pif wrote:
| I can't wait for the Australian border to patrol the oceans in
| order to block this new "microorganism that could pose a serious
| risk to their ecosystem and blah blah blah..."
| slifin wrote:
| Feel like I hear this story a lot
|
| Starting to think it's being over reported because it could be
| poorly interpted as an excuse to keep producing ocean plastic
| karaterobot wrote:
| Do you also hear about legislation or community efforts related
| to reducing ocean plastic being halted as a result of this
| news? I have not.
| ogou wrote:
| Chemotrophs (specifically chemolithotrophs) are bacteria that
| thrive near super heated deep sea vents. They can consume
| (oxidise) iron, sulfur, and a whole range of other elements and
| compounds we consider toxic or immutable. In return they produce
| a kind of sugar that tube worms consume. I hope that future
| plastic bio-mitigation research focusses on energy transformation
| and production like this. Instead of thinking of an impossible
| zero sum end result (destroy it), it's more future oriented to
| use plastic transformed into something new and consumable as an
| energy source.
|
| Think like a tube worm to solve this problem.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemotroph
| exe34 wrote:
| If it exists for more than 2 seconds, there's going to be a
| fungus that will eat it.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Oh no, my headphones/camera/polyester clothes have caught Ocean
| Plastic Eating Fungus and are melting... seriously though is this
| a real concern?
| 0x1ceb00da wrote:
| George Carlin was right. The planet will integrate plastics into
| its ecosystem.
| palijer wrote:
| There have been scientists with far more accreditation in this
| field than a comedian who've been researching this exact thing
| for decades.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Microplastic accumulation in the body makes me wonder if natural
| biopolymers could have the same problem. We cannot break down
| cellulose; what happens to micro-cellulose in the body? Or
| lignin, which is even more refractory to decomposition?
|
| Do plant microfibers accumulate in the body over time, like
| plastic or asbestos fibers? Do we end up loaded with this stuff
| in old age?
|
| One of the most lethal professions of old was baker, because of
| all the flour dust inhaled.
|
| The breakdown of lignin by fungi shows the lengths organisms have
| to go to decompose refractory organic materials. A whole suite of
| enzymes and associated compounds are released into the
| extracellular environment by these fungi, including hydrogen
| peroxide, some of which is decomposed to highly oxidizing
| hydroxyl radicals. This also shows why it should not be
| surprising fungi are capable of attacking plastics, at least to
| some extent: they are already blasting biopolymers with a barrage
| of non-specific highly reactive oxidants.
| therobots927 wrote:
| I wonder if there's a type of fungus humans could eat that
| would break down unwanted fibers and microplastics?
| pfdietz wrote:
| I don't think I'd want my internals exposed to the stuff
| fungi have to excrete to break down the fibers. Fenton
| chemistry is used to clean lab glassware, I think.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenton%27s_reagent
|
| Review article on fungal degradation of lignin:
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3180040/
| therobots927 wrote:
| Well microplastics are _micro_ after all, so maybe the
| byproduct would only be present in small amounts that the
| body can absorb? Chemotherapy is rough on the body but if
| the end result is that the cancer is removed it's generally
| seen as a valid trade off. Unfortunately I'm not very
| knowledgeable about chemistry.
| troyvit wrote:
| Good point. Whenever I think about how much I'm poisoning
| myself with plastics or breathing exhaust or whatever I
| remind myself what I did last Friday night and it's like
| ... yeah this pales in comparison.
| therobots927 wrote:
| Well if you're drinking heavily or something similar yes
| it might be worse than microplastics. But the scary thing
| about microplastics is that they accumulate with time,
| and we still don't know what effects they're having on
| the human body. I find that to be frightening in a very
| existential way, similar to thawing permafrost or nuclear
| Armageddon, lol. You can't escape it, and statistically
| it's probably ruining millions of people's health across
| the world.
| troyvit wrote:
| That's a good point. You can escape vaping questionable
| hemp products a lot easier than you can avoid being a
| walking, talking heavy metal filter for the local coal
| plant.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| Chemotherapy is rough on the body because it's
| specifically targeted to disrupt the process of growing
| new cells, destroying them when they form. Your body
| produces new cells much slower than cancer does (by
| definition), so it can weather the poison longer (in
| theory).
|
| There's no reason to expect this to be the analogy to
| hold for reactive chemicals capable of decomposing
| organic polymers, which are generally tougher to
| decompose than our also-organic cells.
| westurner wrote:
| Are microplastics fat soluble and/or bound with the
| cholesterols and sugar alcohols that cake the arteries?
|
| - "Cyclodextrin promotes atherosclerosis regression via
| macrophage reprogramming"
| https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.aad6100
| https://www.popsci.com/compound-in-powdered-alcohol-can-
| also...
|
| Cellulose and Lignin are dietary fiber:
|
| - "Dietary cellulose induces anti-inflammatory immunity and
| transcriptional programs via maturation of the intestinal
| microbiota"
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7583510/ :
|
| > Dietary cellulose is an insoluble fiber _and consists
| exclusively of unbranched b-1,4-linked glucose monomers. It
| is the major component of plant cell walls and thus a
| prominent fiber in grains, vegetables and fruits. Whereas
| the importance of cellulolytic bacteria for ruminants was
| described already in the 1960s, it still remains enigmatic
| whether the fermentation of cellulose has physiological
| effects in monogastric mammals. [6-11] Under experimental
| conditions, it has been shown that the amount of dietary
| cellulose influences the richness of the colonic
| microbiota, the intestinal architecture, metabolic
| functions and susceptibility to colitis. [12,13] Moreover,
| mice fed a cellulose-enriched diet were protected from
| experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) through
| changes in their microbial and metabolic profiles and
| reduced numbers of pro-inflammatory T cells._
|
| But what about fungi in the body and diet?
|
| What about lignin; Is lignin dietary fiber?
|
| From "Dietary fibre in foods: a review"
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7583510/ :
|
| > _Dietary fibre includes polysaccharides,
| oligosaccharides, lignin and associated plant substances._
|
| From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40649844 re:
| sustainable food packaging solutions :
|
| > _Cellulose and algae are considered safe for human
| consumption and are also biodegradable; but is that an RCT
| study?_
|
| > _CO2 + Lignin is not edible but is biodegradable and
| could replace plastics._
|
| >> "CO2 and Lignin-Based Sustainable Polymers with Closed-
| Loop Chemical Recycling" (2024)
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adfm.202403035
|
| > _What incentives would incentivize the market to change
| over to sustainable biodegradable food-safe packaging?_
| troyvit wrote:
| Macrophages are cells that take care of stuff like eating
| splinters that you can't get out.
|
| What if there was something we could eat that basically
| super-powered our macrophages to to it for us? They already
| eat the microplastics but they just sit inside them.[1]
| Digesting them might be poisonous I guess ...
|
| [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03
| 043...
| pfdietz wrote:
| This is not a bad idea. The lysosomes in cells use some
| fairly intense chemicals to hydrolyse biopolymers, and
| macrophages produce oxidants like hypochlorite. But then,
| inflammation is a risk factor for cancer, perhaps because
| of side effects of those oxidants.
| therobots927 wrote:
| What would that be though? The macrophages would have to be
| supplied with the correct chemical? Seems like it would be
| easier to inject a fungus that can co exist with our cells.
| I recently read about Lichen in Sheldrake's _Entangled
| Life_ and how Lichen is not a single species or even in a
| single kingdom because it consists of a community of fungus
| and algae. In the same way that our cells encapsulated
| mitochondria, I wonder if the macrophages could work well
| with a (genetically modified?) fungi strain that could
| digest the plastic. I know this is far out and I'm hoping
| an expert on the subject could tell me if this has ever
| been discussed. Most people see fungus as a health threat
| but it's an entire kingdom that we've only scratched the
| surface of understanding. If I were to go back to school I
| would probably study mycology.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| I sense a new bullshit-based detox industry coming.
| therobots927 wrote:
| Yeah I hope I don't give anyone ideas. You could make a
| lot of money selling mushroom supplements that supposedly
| contain the same fungus studied in this research.
| 7speter wrote:
| Do we really want broken down petroleum flowing through us
| and getting filtered by our kidneys and liver?
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> Microplastic accumulation in the body makes me wonder if
| natural biopolymers could have the same problem. We cannot
| break down cellulose; what happens to micro-cellulose in the
| body? Or lignin, which is even more refractory to
| decomposition?_
|
| We have a lot of defenses to make sure large molecules don't
| make it into the bloodstream so if those polymers start making
| it through, we'd have much bigger problems. Microplastics are a
| special case because they're very chemically inert, but they're
| still filtered out by the kidneys. Any cellulose or lignin
| would be too.
|
| To be honest, after reading some of these microplastics papers
| I'm starting to suspect most of them are bullshit. Plastics are
| _everywhere_ in a modern lab and rarely do these papers have
| proper controls, which I suspect would show that there is a
| baseline level of microplastic contamination in labs that is
| unavoidable. Petri dishes, pipettes, microplates, _EVERYTHING_
| is plastic, packaged in plastic, and cleaned using plastic
| tools, all by people wearing tons of synthetic fibers.
|
| We went through this same nonsense when genetic sequencers
| first became available until people got it into their heads
| that DNA contamination was everywhere and that we had to be
| really careful with sample collection and statistical methods.
|
| _> One of the most lethal professions of old was baker,
| because of all the flour dust inhaled._
|
| Pretty much anything that is small enough to irritate the lungs
| will cause the same effect, especially at professional exposure
| levels (or worse, like silicosis). Pre-industrial agricultural
| workers and miners frequently suffered from pneumoconiosis from
| dust inhalation too, for example.
| pfdietz wrote:
| All good points. I was engaging in a reasoned form of
| whataboutism. "Neither is actually a problem" would be a
| resolution to the question.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| Wood dust can cause fibrosis:
| https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/pulmonary-fib...
| asdasdsddd wrote:
| that's breathing not eating
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| > One of the most lethal professions of old was baker,
| because of all the flour dust inhaled.
|
| Breathing is clearly on the table for discussion
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| Microplastic concentration is highest in the lungs, but can
| also be found in the blood. As far as I know, we do not know
| how long they persist in the lung, blood, or body more
| generally.
|
| Given their ubiquity, and their endocrine disrupting
| properties, I highly suspect that the rise in autism prevalence
| may in part be attributed to the prenatal exposures to
| microplastics, during which timing and dose effects of
| androgens exposures have set-up long lasting programs of
| development.
|
| Re bakers, I did not know about that. Very interesting.
| philipov wrote:
| Do you think we could cool our overheating oceans by blocking the
| sun with a thick layer of fungus? Because this sounds like a plan
| for covering the oceans in a thick layer of fungus.
| joshuamcginnis wrote:
| I've actually isolated and sequenced the subject fungus
| (Parengyodontium album) from terrestrial sources. If you'd like
| to check out the photos (and DNA), check out:
|
| https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/147456216
|
| https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/150149352
| methuselah_in wrote:
| But what they will push out? Anything living eats whatever gives
| waste on which other depends as nutrition one way or other except
| human.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| One concern not mentioned would be the proliferation of the fungi
| if they are exposed to a new endlessly abundant source of food,
| and which then upsets the current ecosystem balance.
| jrockway wrote:
| No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle
| snakes. They'll wipe out the fungus.
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