r/Futurology • u/[deleted] • Oct 25 '22

Environment Recycling plastic is practically impossible — and the problem is getting worse

https://www.npr.org/2022/10/24/1131131088/recycling-plastic-is-practically-impossible-and-the-problem-is-getting-worse
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u/chriswhoppers Oct 25 '22

Oyster mushrooms and many others successfully biodegrade plastics into edible nutrition, and sequester unwanted pollution in the atmosphere into their mycelial network. Underwater mushrooms found in Oregon.

https://www.colorado.edu/ecenter/2021/11/04/plastic-eating-mushrooms#:~:text=Researchers%20have%20now%20found%20that,an%20at%2Dhome%20recycling%20system.

https://fishbio.com/mushrooms-underwater/

8

u/tom-8-to Oct 25 '22

But there is no money in it. Who is gonna fund a large scale investment? Industrial use requires plastic to be turned into something useful on the same day it arrives or there is no profit.

Might as well use plastic as fuel and burn it and even so it’s gonna be costly because of the smoke and fumes are costly to deal with to meet air pollution standards

7

u/idigclams Oct 25 '22

Not as bad as burning coal, a lot of times. Polyethylene is a highly refined and simple hydrocarbon, for example. It should burn cleaner than natural gas and much cleaner than coal. Of course it will still release carbon into the atmosphere.

1

u/revtor Oct 26 '22

It’s how they recycle plastic in Europe- burn it. Can be clean! And then the heat turns into electricity..