Remember when people used to be concerned about plastic bags because they can take a long time to break down? Turns out they were breaking down into smaller pieces of plastic, so in reality they weren't "breaking down" at all as people would have imagined.

Future generations are going to look back at us like we look back at the Ancient Romans. They knew lead made you crazy yet they still used it for their aqueducts. We are gonna get that same look of disbelief from future school kids.

[–] eagleeyedtiger 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s crazy right, I feel the people who had developed the plastics would be well aware it’s not it’s not actually breaking down.

I did read awhile back they were finding micro plastics literally everywhere now. I wonder if we can develop some bacteria or insect that can digest plastic. I remember someone was doing something with mealworms and styrofoam or similar

[–] Dave 5 points 1 year ago

So it sounds like a good plan, except one thing: the lack of microbes breaking it down is exactly what makes it useful. If you have a microbe breaking down plastic into an organic, then it won't be long before you jump in your car and the plastic parts of the engine have been eaten by the microbe. We will end up having to develop a new substance that doesn't break down.

I think we should be focusing our efforts into moving most things away from using plastic. We should focus on developing non-plastic products that can take the place of plastic for short term/single use places, so plastic can stay useful for longer term uses.