

Teenager Wins Science Fair, Maybe Solves Environmental Problem - amelim
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2008/05/27/its-in-the-bag-teenager-wins-science-fair-solves-massive-environmental-problem/

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crpatino
Other problem I see is the same as the poop vaporizer in the Jack Black's
movie <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Envy_%28film%29>. The fact that the shit
is nowhere to be seen does not mean that it is not there anymore.

We know this kid figured out a natural process to fade plastic away. The
problem with every process is that it has outputs as well as inputs. It is not
a black hole where all plastic bags get lost forever. For the project to
"solve" any environment problem (for future waste disposal, what is spread
already is likely to remain so) it has to avoid creating dangerous byproducts
itself. One risk I see is that very likely the bacteria in this experiment
produce some sort of greenhouse gas that is released all over the atmosphere;
which is a bad outcome, instead of having that same material buried in a
single, concentrated (aka. small), non-livable place.

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weaksauce
It is true that the bacteria must emit some sort of gas or waste product. I
wonder if the bags were put into special chambers that could capture the gas
and turn it into some kind of usable fuel.

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xenonite
What is it about the remainings? Two comments about that (not by me):

[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2008/05/27/its-i...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2008/05/27/its-
in-the-bag-teenager-wins-science-fair-solves-massive-environmental-
problem/#comment-28447)

It is not scientifically possible to decompose plastic, the only thing that
happens is that the plastic is broken into even smaller microscopic bits that
are filtered through all polluted areas; the water is the most dangerous
because plankton and other small organisms filter feed the small bits of
plastic and it travels through the food chain back to us and other animals.

[http://seeinggreen.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/05/can-
plastic...](http://seeinggreen.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/05/can-plastic-bags-
decompose-its-been-widely-thought-that-such-bags-remain-in-landfills-
proactically-forever-howver-they-do-eventually-break-down-and-a-young-
scientist-has-isolated-the-mechanism-from-the-recordgetting-ordinary-plastic-
bag.html)

The inputs are cheap, maintaining the required temperature takes little energy
because microbes produce heat as they work, and the only outputs are water and
tiny levels of carbon dioxide -- each microbe produces only 0.01 per cent of
its own infinitesimal weight in carbon dioxide, said Burd.

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jbrun
This was published 1.5 years ago, what has happened since?

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pmorici
This is the third time this has been posted here.

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philk
Awesome project but I don't think this really counts as solving the problem of
plastic bags:

* Ideal conditions are unlikely to be encountered in the wild.

* Plastic bags are spread out throughout the environment. How to get the plastic-munching bacteria to this disparate plastic isn't solved. (If all the plastic is in one place, well, we've got recycling already).

* The existing bacteria in the world will probably outcompete the bacteria this guy has developed.

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jerhinesmith
Some discussion from the last time this story was posted:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=732123>

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viggity
What this kid has done is certainly cool and I can definitely see very
legitimate uses for this technology. But what is so awful about burying
plastic garbage? I know it supposedly takes 1000 years to decompose, but what
does that matter if it is buried and can't easily be accessed by any animal?

I know that there is a problem with plastic getting into the oceans, but how
does this technology help that?

~~~
maercsrats
Well, there is already a lot of plastic in the oceans:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch>

This could be useful for helping to break down that island if it was seeded
with a slurry of this bacteria.

~~~
Retric
It's not an island. It's _not a visibly dense field of floating debris. The
process of disintegration means that the plastic particulate in much of the
affected region is too small to be seen_ _The Great Pacific Garbage Patch has
one of the highest levels known of plastic particulate suspended in the upper
water column._ Only the continuous addition of new plastic that keeps the
consentrations that high, the plastic actually decomposes fairly quickly.

