Plastic eating bacteria reddit. 161 votes, 28 comments.

Plastic eating bacteria reddit For the distant future, I imagine it'll be much like when bacteria figured out how to consume lignin and cellulose; plastic will go from this indestructible substance to something on par with wood it'll last forever if it's maintained, but insects/fungi will allow it to rot in a similar fashion. View community ranking In the Top 5% of largest communities on Reddit ‘We are just getting started’: the plastic-eating bacteria that could change the world 197 subscribers in the SoYouKnow community. Think seals, ropes, valves and so on. Your plumbing, vynyl siding, furniture, appliances, TV, carpet, electronics, shelves, everything plastic, all destroyed. Thus it is most likely that an increse in bacteria population will cause an increse in phage population until the phage bacteria ratio even out to a new equilibrium. Also, it would be interesting to know the composition of the byproducts these bacteria are producing. 6M subscribers in the environment community. Not great news for beach goers in Florida this year. We found them at existing water-treatment plants. A place for major news from around the world, excluding US-internal news. Plastic eating organisms have been discovered and some research is underway to determine how these organisms can be genetically modified to become more efficient. Posted by u/Laurelais-Hygeine - 1 vote and no comments Oct 30, 2024 · The enthusiasm behind plastic eating mushrooms wanes when people realize that the fungi can’t break things down overnight. 4. com. A circular economy (CE) is, in many ways, our human industrial attempt at mimicking nature… There are some research projects trying to force this adaptation and we might be able to develop plastic eating bacteria or insects in relatively short times. Bacteria have already been discovered that can metabolize a number of plastics. My thinking is that if some bacterial community could mutate to better take advantage of the micro-plastic supply then it would be better for their genetic fitness. 2K subscribers in the unremovable community. Of course they are just metabolizing it with O2 to make CO2 so it's just wasting energy we could have captured in an incinerator, but still better than pollution. Question is how bad. Siberia could only use plastic “A” because their bacteria eats plastic “B”, but America is the opposite and can only use “B”. The spores remain dormant during the useful lifetime of the plastic, but spring back Ideonella Sakaiensis (plastic eating bacteria found in Japan) . They also poop alcohol. Fun fact: plants evolved lignin (the thing that give plants rigidity and the ability to grow tall) so quickly that for thousands of years plants wouldn't decompose because Plastic Digesting Bacteria. The first thing is that bacteria aren't good at eating things that are dry, so for Valeria to effectively eat the plastic they must be in a liquid media, suck as water. This emerging technology holds the promise not only of substantially reducing current plastic pollution, leading to healthier ecosystems and improved global health but also of fostering entire economies centered around upcycling, materials recovery/transformation, and waste-to-energy processes. The bacteria already exists in the wild and only eats certain types of plastic and very slowly - what they do is harvest enzymes from the bacteria and/or synthesise enzymes based on those created by the bacteria. This is probably a very bad idea. The enzyme can be expressed in bacteria (Pseudomonas) that will utilize the entirety of the plastic as a carbon source for growth and can make a new biodegradable plastic (PHA) from it. Most of the research is limited to a space that is controlled for temperature, humidity, waste removal, etc. You think about all the places where plastic needs to be stable and not rot, everything from blood bags, packaged food and drink, the insides of buildings, insides of cars, etc. The first reply talks about waste from the bacteria. Plastic sucks environmentally, we absolutely need to shift away from using plastic except where it is necessary or nearly necessary, like for medical equipment, and for materials and packaging which actually can be recycled - and I'm not 100% sure which materials are highly recyclable because the data is so obfuscated by Casings on tiny components like logic chips, diodes, and capacitors are all plastic. ” The plastic eating bacteria destroys the world That's why we can't just, say, deploy the plastic eating bacteria to the great pacific garbage patch and fix it. We've known this. article reddit. 480 votes, 30 comments. Discuss tips on recycling common household materials, post interesting… 27 votes, 23 comments. Posted by u/izumi3682 - 118 votes and 18 comments There are already bacteria which can eat some plastics. Multiple Vibrio bacteria species have been found living happily on floating plastic and sargassum in the Carribean. It would be the end of civilization. Bacteria need certain conditions for life and growth just like you do. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment. Imagine if plastic mites/fungus/bacteria got into your house. The problem with plastic-eating bacteria is that they decompose plastic. Here's how you can do your part View community ranking In the Top 50% of largest communities on Reddit Plastic-Eating Bacteria Turn Waste Into Useful Starting Materials for Other Products This is Vibrio Vulnificus, a bacteria that lives in the oceans and of which the American health authorities have warned of the increase and presence of this disease, especially in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Expand user menu Open settings menu. 198 votes, 26 comments. A home for the 'green' Redditor. Reply reply PickingPies Posted by u/DoremusJessup - 547 votes and 48 comments Welcome to r/science!This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. these plastic-eating bacteria have evolved to be able to secrete enzymes that specifically target the plastics in question, allowing them to slowly break them down into their constituent monomers, which are a lot easier to nom on for energy. Degradation and assimilation of PET Ideonella sakaiensis PET surface and use a secreted PET hydrolase, or PETase, to degrade the PET into mono(2-hydroxyethyl)terephthalic acid (MHET), a heterodimer composed of terephthalic acid (TPA) and ethylene glycol. BBC News Automated Feed No Censorship, Just News. then you set up methane capture extension on top of the plastic-eating facility. Umm, we didn't invent plastic eating bacteria. Plastic eating bacteria eat 10% of their weight per day, so to clean the ocean in 100 years which is estimated to have over 75 million ton of plastic up to 200 million you would need between 20 billion to 56 billion bacteria. Gut bacteria. com Open. 86 votes, 13 comments. 8M subscribers in the india community. List of Plastic Digesting Organisms (19) It isn't as ubiquitous under as many conditions and locations as organisms that digest lignum lignin and cellulose right now --and even in areas rich in wood decomposing organisms--such as humid forests--you still see a lot of wood lying around. The world's best info videos - bite-sized nuggets of information and learning Eventually, plastic eating bacteria will be everywhere, and we'll have as much trouble with it as we do with rusting iron based metals. Mold produces penicillin to destroy bacteria, a microbial competitor, and this plastic-eating bacteria eats plastic to thrive. Your one-stop community for the latest world affairs, filtered to keep you abreast of what’s going on… 3. r/Sino is a subreddit for news, information, and discussion on anything China and Chinese related. 288 subscribers in the SinoDiscussion community. Chances are, one day, they will escape and enter places we don’t want them to be. Presumably the ethanol (the spirit in alcoholic drinks) could be used for that or fuel (which produces CO2 and water). A nylon eating bacteria was discovered in 1975 and is one of the best examples of evolution in action Edit: It actually digests one of the byproducts of nylon manufacture Welcome to r/science!This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. Plastic is everywhere, not just in bags or containers. co Welcome to r/science!This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. 5M subscribers in the environment community. D. Most boats, even the boats that look like metal, rely on plastic parts to stay afloat. true. They aren't actually "eating" the plastic - they're just degrading it, and it doesn't necessarily degrade into stuff that's more environmentally friendly than plastic to begin with. Each plastic eating bacteria we create is specific to only a single type of plastic, and with dozens to hundreds of different kinds, it won't do much fast enough before the bacteria runs out of nearby plastics that it can use Meanwhile, consider that whatever energy they get from the plastic is partially offset by the cost of breaking down the plastic, so it’s a very poor diet. A place to discuss all things biology! We welcome people and content from all… /r/EverythingScience is the sister subreddit to /r/science. PET plastics. Kindness Matters. They'd eat the plastic on the packaging of the stuff you buy. Cuts, scrapes, and bug bites can be enough to introduce this bacteria to your bloodstream if you come into contact with it on the beach or in the water. The main problem i see with eating yogurt to replace the bacteria is simply that most with die in the stomach. Or check it out in the app stores Plastic-eating bacteria . When it starts chewing on water and food containers but also sewage pipes, electric insulators and gas distribution it becomes a bit of an another health issue. The effects are modest – it’s Apr 30, 2024 · Scientists have developed a "self-digesting plastic", which, they say, could help reduce pollution. Is it possible to obtain some for… Those byproducts are then what the bacteria actually consumes. 7K subscribers in the ProEarth community. Mainly the type that grocery bags are made of. 20M subscribers in the Futurology community. Current news, information and issues related to the environment. This bacteria is hydrocarbon-degrading, meaning it belongs to a group of microorganisms that can Plastic-eating bacteria would be great for the planet and absolutely apocalyptic for humans. A possible digestive pathway for the ethylene glycol (from other bacteria) leaves CO2 and ethanol. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, personal anecdotes are now allowed as responses to this comment. A subreddit devoted to the field of Future(s) Studies and evidence-based… To rest everyone's worries of "what happens if these get out!" - they'd die. Eating your plastic bags, polyester shoes or electronic circuit boards is one thing. They'd eat the plastic on your electronics, they'd eat the plastic in your car. It'd be like metal rusting, except it most would be unpainted currently. Considering the prevalence of plastics in the environment, could natural selection expand the efficiency and variety of plastic eating organisms? Posted by u/Lynxer0 - 3 votes and 8 comments 1. Every time a new "bacteria eating plastic" article comes up I think of the book "Mutant 59: The Plastic Eater". Not only does a bacteria with similar properties exist in North America, but it was found, cultivated and segregated by a high school student. With a broader rule set than /r/science, it is the place for high quality scientific content that doesn't necessarily reference a peer-reviewed paper from the last 6 months. " New plastic eating bacteria are discovered all the time, what you see in the news is generally just the discovery of a new species or a discovery about a known species. We would replace the plastic with natural materials but that just shifts the problem - often the reason we switched to plastic is that it lasts longer and doesn't need to be poisoned to stop things eating it. 19M subscribers in the UpliftingNews community. As you explained, there is an abundance of micro-plastic in the environment available for bacteria. If this bacteria propagates in an urban setting it wont be long before it is considered a pest. That might work for small containers but we would have big issues with the higher weight and resources needed to produce glass outside of that field. The microbes degrade polyethylene terephthalate (PET) – one of the world’s most common plastics. Science diagrams that look like shitposts: Pictures from science textbooks or articles that when… 26 subscribers in the RealGreenwash community. 2K subscribers in the DamnInteresting community. Perhaps you mean to ask if/when we can optimize their enzymatic pathways to enable bioremediation of our plastic wastes on an industrial scale? Or the extent to which we can engineer bacteria capable of dealing with ALL different kinds of the plastics we make? Plastic-eating bacteria might help explain why the amount of debris in the ocean has levelled off, despite continued pollution. it’s not hard to see Thus far a few fungi and bacteria have been found that can degrade the "soft" versions of those plastics under perfect laboratory conditions. The internet and social media is regularly awash with articles, threads, and posts designed to prevent… 28M subscribers in the Showerthoughts community. 183K subscribers in the sciences community. As plastic sealants like plastic caulking often found in housing fail, it will let in the toxins from the degrading plastic in. A subreddit for sharing those miniature epiphanies you have that highlight the oddities within the… 5. 131K subscribers in the AskScienceDiscussion community. It's like how bacteria break up trees: very slowly. 1K subscribers in the circular_economy community. 50 years down the road this mushroom will basically be the rust of plastic, eating unprotected surfaces. We have no idea where they exist because it's not like we check everywhere. The plastic-digesting bacteria so far aren't very good. Read the… 19M subscribers in the Futurology community. There is plenty of flesh eating bacteria out there. A place to read and share positive and uplifting, feel good news stories. I can see bacteria eating microplastics. If we do end up using bacteria to “solve” our plastic problem, we won’t try to stop the source. The scientists think the microbes' enzymes—proteins that speed chemical reactions—might help recycle some kinds of plastic, much of which gets buried in landfills, burned, or washed into rivers and oceans. This is different, this bacteria are using LDPE as a primary energy source, a lot of the other "discoveries" of plastic eating organisms did not establish they were chemically breaking down the plastic to extract energy. As 161 votes, 28 comments. “Plastic is a new element that’s been introduced into marine environments and has only been around for about 50 years,” said Tracy Mincer , Ph. The Official Subreddit for India Get the Reddit app Scan this QR code to download the app now As science seems to be making headway into plastic eating bacteria, the thought of what would happen I've been kicking an idea around in my head about the consequences of what happens when a well-meaning group develops a bacteria or yeast that consumes plastics and petrolum products, and it is released into the wild, but it's nagging me that I might have read a story about this and just don't remember the details. 28M subscribers in the memes community. 386 votes, 66 comments. Normal flora bacteria can act as opportunistic pathogens at times of lowered immunity" Source. 19M subscribers in the Futurology community. No, the bacteria wouldn't do really anything to cause an apocalypse. Also to consider: our whole civilization is currently built on plastic, and on the up until now fact that it’s durable. r/Futurology has gone private in protest of Reddit's recent behavior and planned changes to the API…. on polypropylene. We would have lost our most efficient way to keep food edible for longer periods of time. Information, News, Clean ups, ideas Join in and… By incorporating spores of plastic-eating bacteria they've developed a plastic that can self-destruct. So after some light googling I heard about Ideonella sakaiensis the bacteria that eats plastic, specifically PET. The very things that make plastic a problem are what make it do useful…it doesn’t easily biodegrade. Our pipes have plastic, our polyester clothes are plastic, plastic is a building material. If a post hits the hot page of our watch_list, it becomes "unremovable. Is it scalable to tackle plastic polution? Yes and no. A place to discuss the subreddit that is /r/Sino 35 subscribers in the KindnessMatters community. It’s entirely likely their waste could be more toxic than the plastic they’re eating. These represent… 1. 1. Plastic Eating Bacteria Discovered in India: Hope for Fighting Plastic PollutionPetroleum based plastics are non-degradable and get accumulated in… Every single time someone posted articles about "plastic eating bacteria" or similar, the main question was always "what does the bacteria poop?" Because the answer is always "worse plastic". 2K votes, 96 comments. Sep 23, 2024 · Plastic-eating enzymes are just one example of the means by which microbes can be harnessed to eat pollutants—from the ‘forever chemicals’ per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) to Posted by u/darkpaste - 32 votes and 6 comments So let’s release these into the wild or even a closed off environment. Almost everything you buy at a grocery store is sealed in plastic and the whole reason is to keep bacteria out. 296 votes, 28 comments. 320 votes, 19 comments. I periodically see science articles on how progress with plastic eatting bacteria, and it seems to be a solution to the growing plastic waste problem in our world; which sounds great, don't get me wrong, but my everyday experience with plastic is that it's so useful because it doesn't rapidly degrade. Get the Reddit app Scan this QR code to download the app now. 264 subscribers in the Videdia community. Here you can ask any question you have about being a scientist, what's new in a field, what's… 19K subscribers in the recycling community. So these genetically modified bacteria will be good at eating plastic in the ocean. But researchers don't yet know whether the digestion produces harmless by-products, or whether it might introduce toxins into the food chain. But without the adaptations needed to thrive in nature these will not work well outside tightly controlled environments and will likely not survive long in nature. Log In / Sign Up 54 votes, 15 comments. If they're eating highly nonpolar substances like plastic, they are unlikely to eat important functional groups in our chemical makeup. But it's a very concerning one in terms of antibiotic resistance, which is the next big thing that will make COVID look silly in comparison, whether they're actually using P. In response the manufactures will coat their plastic in something that prevents decay by mushroom. 1M subscribers in the ZeroWaste community. The reddit-specific version of the curated links section of DamnInteresting. Of course this requires further study before getting too excited but it is a glimmer of hope in the war against plastic The plastic is made from lots of complex carbon chains. Plastic pollution leads to severe impact on marine Apr 30, 2024 · By incorporating spores of plastic-eating bacteria they've developed a plastic that can self-destruct. There are already plenty of hydrocarbon consuming bacteria out there - Alcanivorax borkumensis (which eats petroleum and randomly shows up from background populations every time there's a spill, yet is a nightmare to culture), Candidatus Bermanella macondoprimitus Good news! Microorganisms handle micro plastic well while being unable to digest macro plastic. 125K subscribers in the solarpunk community. , corresponding lead author and an assistant professor of biology at FAU’s Stock Market News Feed for Idea Generation Best viewed on PC with Reddit Enhancement Suite Use an Auto Reload Tab browser extension to refresh every 1 - 3 minutes. Dec 11, 2024 · Plastic-eating bacteria? One key discovery was the presence of Oleispira sp. The same way they eventually evolved to consume lignin in plants. Also an engineered bacteria that is eating plastics is not going to compete with natural bacteria for food. He says penicillin and the plastic-eating bacteria are examples of nature’s ability to overcome anything “in the evolutionary struggle for life”, and that’s surely the case. Ocean bacteria do have a natural predator. On the general progress and direction of the human species, past, present and future. Reply reply Haarflaq22 Posted by u/[Deleted Account] - 10 votes and 4 comments Plastic eating bacteria in the wild is a nightmare scenario. The main problem of carbon capture today is bad efficiency with the atmospheric concentration (400 ppm is a lot of CO2 for atmosphere, but it's really small concentration chemically). Memes! A way of describing cultural information being shared. 952 subscribers in the BBCauto community. Imagine the chaos of an airborne fungus that eats plastic. Or check it out in the app stores [News] - Plastic-eating bacteria help waste self-destruct bbc. 307 votes, 19 comments. Chances are not that bad. Join us for… Posted by u/Electroyote - 5 votes and 3 comments So much of our current infrastructure (water, electricity) depends on plastic taking decades to degrade. 3. That's what will happen if plastic-eating bacteria infest the entire globe. Solarpunk is a genre and aesthetic that envisions collective futures that are vibrant with life, as well… 1. Plastic Digesting Fungi. aeruginosa for that or not. Just a funny joke reddit. Apr 18, 2018 · But scientists recently discovered a strain of bacteria that can literally eat the plastic used to make bottles, and have now improved it to make it work faster. An element of a culture or system of behavior… Imagine your city having to replace every culvert every 5 years because the plastic anti-corrosion coating lasts 5 years instead of 99 years. This is both a good and bad thing - good when you need to eliminate plastic waste on a landfill, bad when you need a reliable and long lasting material for building or creating reliable products. Just a place to share your random thoughts. It would could world trade more difficult. 4M subscribers in the biology community. Then some shitty DuPont 3M type is going to "treat" plastic with some other toxin that will be a million times worse than the micro plastics themselves. Your water main rotting away every 5 years. I wonder why such a bacteria hasn't yet emerged. Think of all the things that are made of or contained in plastic that you wouldn’t want bacteria to eat. In which they release a virus to eat the plastic they don't want anymore but it mutates to eat all plastic. Posted by u/sktafe2020 - 7 votes and no comments 8. 4K subscribers in the ScienceShitposts community. 96K subscribers in the Sino community. A student may have found a solution to one of the world’s most urgent environmental crises – breeding bacteria capable of “eating” plastic and potentially breaking it down into harmless by-products. Note that they will be specific for type of plastic. I don't see them eating a PVC pipe in any reasonable time. I think eventually Bacteria and fungi that can consume plastic will become much more common over time. Posted by u/Inside_Berry_8531 - 30 votes and 3 comments View community ranking In the Top 1% of largest communities on Reddit ‘We are just getting started’: the plastic-eating bacteria that could change the world | Plastics theguardian The worst part is that even if we could invent a bacteria that eats plastics, it would make plastic much less usable because now it would go bad. Ability to compete in nature? Industrial processes for digestion of certain plastics? maybe. I have news for these guys. Now imagine this plastic eating bacteria set loose out of control in the wild. Once this mushroom comes out of the amazon every thing on the planet will be susceptible to being eaten by mushrooms. Posted by u/suicidalthrowaway383 - 2 votes and 2 comments 69 votes, 15 comments. The moment you extract oil out of the ground, there's no putting it back, it's out forever, destroying environment. Everything to do with the recycling of Plastic. 603 subscribers in the PlasticRecycling community. Plastic Eating Fungi Present a Promising Solution Plastic-eating bacteria could be a small step toward tackling the world's pollution crisis - A strain of bacteria, the first of its kind, that can degrade the harmful compounds in polyurethane products -- a positive step toward reducing the amount of plastic pollution in the environment. A community for people who like science Essentially this means that the flesh-eating Vibrio bacteria is colonizing plastic debris in the warm ocean water. A subreddit devoted to the field of Future(s) Studies and evidence-based… There’s a science fiction story called “mutant 59: the plastic eater. We are responsible citizens who try to minimize our overall environmental impact. Members Online The race to scale up green hydrogen 35M subscribers in the todayilearned community. Waxworms can eat some plastics. A subreddit devoted to the field of Future(s) Studies and evidence-based… Bacteria and fungi recently discovered in the Swiss Alps can digest biodegradable plastics at low temperatures. The bacteria that eat plastic are probably not going to be released into the environment just because it would be inefficient from an industrial perspective. This leads to less commercial investment in these projects, which reinforces the uncertainty around their efficiency and investment value. For one thing, the physical nature of plastics generally is not conducive to enzyme attack. Our entire food and medical supply chains rely on plastic, at the moment…as do most consumer goods. The majority of these commensal bacteria are anaerobes, meaning they survive in an environment with no oxygen. The spores remain dormant during the useful lifetime of the plastic, but spring back to life and start to digest the product when exposed to nutrients in compost. 33M subscribers in the worldnews community. Polyurethane is used in everything from phone cases to trainers, but is tricky to recycle Mar 23, 2022 · Plastic-eating bacteria could help to one day tackle some of the 14 million tons of plastic that is offloaded into our oceans every year. 5M subscribers in the NoStupidQuestions community. r/Futurology has gone private in protest of Reddit's recent behavior and planned… Posted by u/Homewithpizza23 - 6 votes and 6 comments The real issue is a plastic eating bacteria wouldn't just eat refuse plastic. Share Sort by I haven't had time to look up if that's actually a bacteria researchers are using for plastic. You learn something new every day; what did you learn today? Submit interesting and specific facts… We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. The bacteria don’t require growth at 50C to do so, it’s just a little slower breakdown than the enzyme alone at 50 C. Re-soldering replacement components onto most electronics is virtually impossible at useful scale. A small and friendly community for those who care about the Earth and all its inhabitants. Ask away! In a report by NZ Herald it was stated that recently a group of students from Yale University found a species which appears to be happy eating plastic in airless landfills. This ability, if upscaled to an industrial scale, will save money and energy during recycling, say scientists. We’ll just keep on making more and more plastic. Such as "If woman tattoo their… Posted by u/madazzahatter - 4,596 votes and 373 comments Get the Reddit app Scan this QR code to download the app now. 20 subscribers in the MarchOfProgress community. Anyone with experience culturing bacteria knows that. But that requires intense separation of plastics, and waxworms are larval stage of Greater Wax Moths, and are only in larval stage for a few weeks, so scaling it up would be very intensive. 193 subscribers in the MemerThoughts community. Volia, plastic solved, carbon either solidified and buried or sent out as fuel. Jul 2, 2021 · Some scientists have already found bacteria that wield enzymes able to break down a common plastic used to make water bottles and clothing. Reply reply It would be interesting to consider multiple bacteria in different regions of the world. cnoi iertku lzwfa fnipwez lgrynob cmlj gzqd rkhrs wmbx iumoww