this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2024
516 points (98.5% liked)
science
14806 readers
179 users here now
A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.
rule #1: be kind
<--- rules currently under construction, see current pinned post.
2024-11-11
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The UN's Global Plastics Treaty is certainly a step in the right direction. I'm not sure what can actually be done about the problem, especially with how pervasive synthetic materials are throughout the world. And what is medicine supposed to do? Plastics revolutionized sanitation, particularly in the medical field. Very complicated issue to resolve.
Plastics are also used extensively in the electricity sector as insulation for conductors, support structures, etc.
We need our vendors of these products to start addressing this issue, and unfortunately I don't think this is going to come from the consumer end. Maybe for alternative insulating liquids for transformers and whatnot like with Cargill FR3 or Shell MIDEL products, but clearly more needs to be done. Schneider Electric is a good example of a company leading the way
There are certain industries, like medical, that would probably be one of the last, if ever, to do away with plastic, simply due to the upsides. The only option we have as a species is to create a truly biodegradable, non-toxic, easily obtainable and cheap to produce alternative.
Haha who am I kidding, we are fucked, plastic manufacturers go brrrrrrrrr.
Medical and electrical insulation. Two places where plastics are better than the alternatives.
Fungi.
The problem in using biodegradeable materials to build things is that it degrades. Do you really want your wiring insulation decaying?
Yeah, for things that are supposed to endure, biodegradability is indeed problematic. However, using plastics for things such as wiring insulation would be still a potential source of microplastics even in a world where all plastic was abandoned in favor of fungi and paper packing materials. Ain't no easy solution, unfortunately.
Steel decays via rusting as its outer coating is sacrificed to corrosion. Civil features decay as erosion degrades it over time. Wooden power poles decay as their treatment degrades and fungi/insects attack them. Outdoor wiring decays if in direct sunlight due to any sunlight resistive coating degrading over time to UV radiation. Oil used as lubricant in motor vehicles and as insulating fluid in electrical equipment degrades over time due to thermal cycling, oxidation, and moisture.
The point I'm making is that things degrade naturally. Plastic is no exception, although engineers have been able to make certain decisions with it such that constructions can last for decades.
If we can make plastic by default biodegrade naturally, and at a much faster time scale than today's oxo-degradable and biodegradable alternatives, then it still allows for scientists and engineers to select for plastics that have been specifically engineered for the application via coatings and whatnot, comparable to steel and wood.
It's possible to do so. We just need to flip the script and make biodegradation the norm and not the exception