
Engineered microbe may be key to producing plastic from plants - dnetesn
https://phys.org/news/2019-03-microbe-key-plastic.html
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eganist
Since the current three top-level comments are all the exact same
environmental complaint, all without having actually read the link, here are
the relevant quotes:

> In the course of its digestion process, the microbe turns those aromatic
> compounds into 2-pyrone-4,6-dicarboxylic acid—more manageably known as PDC.

> It would be an attractive plastic alternative—one that would break down
> naturally in the environment, and wouldn't leach hormone-mimicking compounds
> into water

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xmlblog
Would be nice to find the microbe that converts plastic to plants.

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sp332
Here's an overview of some organisms that might be able to digest plastic, and
some of the hurdles that will have to be overcome for real-world use.
[https://cen.acs.org/environment/sustainability/Plastics-
recy...](https://cen.acs.org/environment/sustainability/Plastics-recycling-
microbes-worms-further/96/i25)

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peter303
Believe it or not petroleum will run low and become very expensive some time
in the future. Clever technology has just pushed that date out to mid century.
Petroleum is the main source of plastics and many chemicals. You might
alternatives when crude oil reaches a thousand dollars a barrel.

~~~
sp332
As fossil fuel use winds down, that date will be pushed much further into the
future. After all, to keep global warming below ~3 degrees centigrade, we'll
have to avoid burning most known oil reserves.

What % of crude oil can be converted into plastic anyways?

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bayindirh
Looks like fiber-plastic plantations from Hyperion is becoming a reality.

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splittingTimes
More plastic? Should we not try to figure out how to engineer microbes to
ingest micro plastic and return something biodegradable?

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King-Aaron
I mean, it kind of said that in the article?

> It would be an attractive plastic alternative—one that would break down
> naturally in the environment, and wouldn't leach hormone-mimicking compounds
> into water

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bibyte
More plastic ? Is there a shortage of plastic that I missed ? It would be a
much more exciting news if someone managed to convert plastic to biodegradable
material.

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chr1
Read the article until the end, in the last section it says that plastic
produced by this method is would break naturally in the environment.

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bibyte
Yes I read that. But what about the plastic that are already in the world ? I
think that a way getting ride of that would be a much more exciting discovery.

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NeedMoreTea
Perhaps it would, but surely the first step of fixing that is to stop adding
to the problem, in millions of tons a year?

If there's a plant derived alternative with most of the benefits without the
major downsides _we could start reducing, perhaps to near zero, the amount
produced from oil._ That seems like a pretty significant and exciting
discovery. A possibility of plastic that degrades gracefully and doesn't
linger in the environment. Even if we're left with some specialist uses that
must still come from oil it's world changing. For once, world changing for the
better.

Hopefully we will _also_ find a way to get rid of all the oil derived plastics
already out there.

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gigatexal
Uses wood based plants hmm.. and no method if the resulting plastics are
biodegradable to address our pollution problem. Still removing even more
dependence on oil would be nice.

~~~
eganist
> It would be an attractive plastic alternative—one that would break down
> naturally in the environment, and wouldn't leach hormone-mimicking compounds
> into water

~~~
gigatexal
I missed that part.

