We've heard the "biodegradable" greenwashing scam of plastic technology advances over and over again. Maybe we shouldn't be seeking continued use of toxic petrochemical processes and should instead change our storage and packaging materials to be less hazardous and more reusable, because many other options already exist.
It's very easy to say "why don't we just stop using toxic petrochemicals," but very hard to do in practice. For a sustainability advancement to be considered a success, it has to actually replace something. To replace something, it:
- has to be affordable, or people will refuse to buy it. The general public cares more for its wallet than the environment.
- has to be at least as performant as what it's replacing, or people won't want to change. The general public is not going to buy an inferior product in the name of sustainability.
- has to be more environmentally friendly than what preceeded it, or it has no benefit.
If you can find a more environmentally friendly material that is able to replace plastic, achieve its physical properties, at the same cost, then patent it and you will be very wealthy. And will have outplayed the billions (probably a lowball) being dumped into this by governments, universities, and private companies around the world.
Also, the reason most of these articles hype their own work up is because the name of the game in academia is grant money. If a funding agency doesn't think your work is impactful, they'll give it to someone who is. That's why articles rarely describe their incremental work as just being incremental.
That will be 5 $ more per butterstick, for the logistics of reusable porcelain butter packages.. which have to be collected, washed and shipped. Which makes it a rich people feel good status-symbol luxury, sadly.
Or you know, supermarkets would purchase 50kg blocks of butter and fraction it, clients would then be responsible for bringing their own reusable containers.
You’d still have to pay the employee who’d be responsible for cutting and weighing the butter for each customer, and taking payment for the butter (or however else that would work). Or build a machine that does it. Not sure how the cost for that would work out, or the machine’s ecological footprint in comparison.
This. There seems to be one of these announcements every so often, and i havent seen any of them used at scale, or making any kind of dent in the status quo.
> can be water stabilized with hydrophobic coatings
So when they make takeout containers out of this it's going to be coated with... something. I am suspicious of all these coatings they're slapping on compostable food containers these days.
“In a locked vehicle, a dark dashboard, steering wheel or seat can often reach temperature ranges of 180 - 200 degrees F, which then warms the air trapped inside a vehicle.” 194F is 90C.
And that’s Florida, other parts of the globe have higher outdoor temperatures which result in higher internal temperatures.
People definitely live in places where it gets that hot. (And note that's the air temperature in the shade, not even surface temperatures in sunlight which can get much hotter).
People survive because it's not 50°C all the time in those hot places. And the wet bulb temperature is lower, so sweating works (just about) to regulate body temperature. Mostly air conditioning and shelter, though.
Those links aren't shy about explaining that people exposed to that level of heat die. Here's the first one:
> According to a study recently published in Nature Medicine, more than 60 000 people died because of last year’s summer heatwaves across Europe.
It's not necessary for your home food storage to be able to survive temperatures that you can't. If it happens to the food in your home, it will happen to you too.
People die with less heat. But clearly not everyone, and it is not true that:
> no one can use any object in such a climate, because they'd die.
By the way, I know you can survive that heat because I did. No air conditioner. It was excruciating and I don’t wish it upon anyone. Well, maybe on climate change deniers, it would probably do them some good to suffer through it to believe the science. They probably wouldn’t but at least they wouldn’t be able to move to make it worse, either.
My aunt got me a big wooden bowl in college and I was poor so I ate popcorn out of it. I noticed the popcorn tasted weird for quite some time. I finally put two and two together when the coating had all come off the bottom. The hot popcorn and oil had been removing the God knows what shiny finish and I had been eating it. :(
> Plastics that can metabolize in oceans are highly sought for a sustainable future.
Really? I think that putting more nutrients in the water is almost as bad as having plastics floating around. The Baltic sea for example, have dead zones caused by agricultural runoff.
Surely, the best would be to not put more stuff in the water?
it is certainly good to not put more stuff in the water. i would suggest it is even better not to make stuff that shouldn't go in the water. but apparently a lot has already been made and there's constantly more of it in the water, and it looks like nobody is stopping
so if some major fraction of present production of that shit that shouldn't go in the water can be eliminated, and satisfied by an alternative that is not a persistent accumulating poison, i'll take it
What the other commenter is alluding to is that, if this comes into widespread use, it won't just be a moderate amount. We produce mind-boggling amounts of plastic waste and a lot of it would concentrate in rivers and estuaries.
We've heard the "biodegradable" greenwashing scam of plastic technology advances over and over again. Maybe we shouldn't be seeking continued use of toxic petrochemical processes and should instead change our storage and packaging materials to be less hazardous and more reusable, because many other options already exist.
It's very easy to say "why don't we just stop using toxic petrochemicals," but very hard to do in practice. For a sustainability advancement to be considered a success, it has to actually replace something. To replace something, it:
- has to be affordable, or people will refuse to buy it. The general public cares more for its wallet than the environment.
- has to be at least as performant as what it's replacing, or people won't want to change. The general public is not going to buy an inferior product in the name of sustainability.
- has to be more environmentally friendly than what preceeded it, or it has no benefit.
If you can find a more environmentally friendly material that is able to replace plastic, achieve its physical properties, at the same cost, then patent it and you will be very wealthy. And will have outplayed the billions (probably a lowball) being dumped into this by governments, universities, and private companies around the world.
Also, the reason most of these articles hype their own work up is because the name of the game in academia is grant money. If a funding agency doesn't think your work is impactful, they'll give it to someone who is. That's why articles rarely describe their incremental work as just being incremental.
You seem to believe plastic containers are used due to being a more affordable and technically superior solution. That’s a common mistake.
The true reason it’s so cheap and available, is subsidies. $7 trillion as of 2023, to be exact.
Without subsidies, using a non-renewable, expensive to harvest resource, to produce single-use plastic would be an absolutely irrational decision.
https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/08/24/fossil-fuel...
That will be 5 $ more per butterstick, for the logistics of reusable porcelain butter packages.. which have to be collected, washed and shipped. Which makes it a rich people feel good status-symbol luxury, sadly.
Or you know, supermarkets would purchase 50kg blocks of butter and fraction it, clients would then be responsible for bringing their own reusable containers.
You’d still have to pay the employee who’d be responsible for cutting and weighing the butter for each customer, and taking payment for the butter (or however else that would work). Or build a machine that does it. Not sure how the cost for that would work out, or the machine’s ecological footprint in comparison.
This. There seems to be one of these announcements every so often, and i havent seen any of them used at scale, or making any kind of dent in the status quo.
> can be water stabilized with hydrophobic coatings
So when they make takeout containers out of this it's going to be coated with... something. I am suspicious of all these coatings they're slapping on compostable food containers these days.
Well, even vegetable oil is hydrophobic, so "something" needn't be too horrible. (Oil would obviously wipe off too easily.)
Apparently soybean wax works well: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7435775/
Though not for hot foods. It'll only work up to 50°C.
Borosilicate glass, metal, wood/bamboo/paper, ... there are many existing choices without looking for or inventing an impractical "flying car" option.
Downsides to using glass and wood for takeout should be obvious and please don't put my soup in a paper takeout container.
What about the downside of takeout?
Or hot climates that reach >50 C
Or simple locked car on a sunny day (maybe not during winter), with dark interior. This can reach >90C over an hour or two.
No car interior has ever reached 90C. Did you mean 90 F?
Overall temperature isn’t 90C but your lunch could be in contact with those temperatures:
https://www.clickorlando.com/news/2019/09/26/heres-how-hot-t...
“In a locked vehicle, a dark dashboard, steering wheel or seat can often reach temperature ranges of 180 - 200 degrees F, which then warms the air trapped inside a vehicle.” 194F is 90C.
And that’s Florida, other parts of the globe have higher outdoor temperatures which result in higher internal temperatures.
Maybe not far off from 90, given you can fry eggs in open air in the sun and for that you need 65.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhYkUuvDsGA
> No car interior has ever reached 90C.
Ever seen a car on fire? I have.
Ever seen a car on fire caused by heating from the sun? Well maybe not. But I have seen an egg get cooked on the roof of a car as a demonstration.
Have you ever been inside a hot car? Metal surfaces can easily exceed 100C.
There's no reason you'd ever worry about that; no one can use any object in such a climate, because they'd die.
People definitely live in places where it gets that hot. (And note that's the air temperature in the shade, not even surface temperatures in sunlight which can get much hotter).
People survive because it's not 50°C all the time in those hot places. And the wet bulb temperature is lower, so sweating works (just about) to regulate body temperature. Mostly air conditioning and shelter, though.
You have not been paying attention.
https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Coperni...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/22/west-africa-he...
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-66229057
Those links aren't shy about explaining that people exposed to that level of heat die. Here's the first one:
> According to a study recently published in Nature Medicine, more than 60 000 people died because of last year’s summer heatwaves across Europe.
It's not necessary for your home food storage to be able to survive temperatures that you can't. If it happens to the food in your home, it will happen to you too.
People die with less heat. But clearly not everyone, and it is not true that:
> no one can use any object in such a climate, because they'd die.
By the way, I know you can survive that heat because I did. No air conditioner. It was excruciating and I don’t wish it upon anyone. Well, maybe on climate change deniers, it would probably do them some good to suffer through it to believe the science. They probably wouldn’t but at least they wouldn’t be able to move to make it worse, either.
There's also shellac.
Soluble in alkali environments. No thanks.
They specifically mention a coating in the abstract, parylene C.
I am suspicious of the food in the takeout containers.
Perhaps some sort of food-grade wax? Although then you've got to worry about hot foods...
My aunt got me a big wooden bowl in college and I was poor so I ate popcorn out of it. I noticed the popcorn tasted weird for quite some time. I finally put two and two together when the coating had all come off the bottom. The hot popcorn and oil had been removing the God knows what shiny finish and I had been eating it. :(
Hopefully just food grade mineral oil and beeswax if it was a wooden bowl.
It was one of those you might get at Pier 1 or Kohl’s back then and had a really plasticky coating. Not my best moment.
laughs in PFAS
> Plastics that can metabolize in oceans are highly sought for a sustainable future.
Really? I think that putting more nutrients in the water is almost as bad as having plastics floating around. The Baltic sea for example, have dead zones caused by agricultural runoff.
Surely, the best would be to not put more stuff in the water?
it is certainly good to not put more stuff in the water. i would suggest it is even better not to make stuff that shouldn't go in the water. but apparently a lot has already been made and there's constantly more of it in the water, and it looks like nobody is stopping
so if some major fraction of present production of that shit that shouldn't go in the water can be eliminated, and satisfied by an alternative that is not a persistent accumulating poison, i'll take it
Depends on what you put in, how much, and where.
I do not think moderate quantities of nutrients are a problem, and very likely has benefits.
What the other commenter is alluding to is that, if this comes into widespread use, it won't just be a moderate amount. We produce mind-boggling amounts of plastic waste and a lot of it would concentrate in rivers and estuaries.
The natural input of "nutrients" to the ocean is vast, compared to the natural input of modern artificial plastics.
Well yeah but good luck with that.
Interesting that this is a thermoplastic - my first question is how it performs as a 3D printer filament?