r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Feb 20 '21

Chemistry Chemists developed two sustainable plastic alternatives to polyethylene, derived from plants, that can be recycled with a recovery rate of more than 96%, as low-waste, environmentally friendly replacements to conventional fossil fuel-based plastics. (Nature, 17 Feb)

https://academictimes.com/new-plant-based-plastics-can-be-chemically-recycled-with-near-perfect-efficiency/
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u/arganost Feb 20 '21

Problem with alternatives like this is, even when they have a cost advantage the incumbent industry will use its economically entrenched position to block adoption of the alternative.

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u/MarlinMr Feb 20 '21

And... It's still plastic. The main reason we use plastic, is that it doesn't rot. And that's the entire problem. The plastic we use already is also from plants.

We can recycle plastic too, it's just not cost effective. But it's the breakdown that is the main problem.

We want to use things like metals and wood because when you are done, you can easily return it to the ground without affecting life.

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u/Kujo1 Feb 20 '21 edited Feb 20 '21

Most of this is wrong, sorry.

The fact that it doesn't decompose is not a main reason for using it in many cases, especially not compared to metal or wood which can also be made durable.

Big advantages of polymers are that they are cheap, diverse in properties, light-weight, flexible and mostly non-toxic. Among other factors.

We certainly don't want to use wood or metal as there are reasons why these exact materials have been replaced by polymers, e.g. the ones I mentioned.

Production of metal and wood also have their own big issues - more reasons why they were replaced by plastic.

One example: try building a car without plastic. It will be heavy beyond believe and power or fuel consumption would go through the roof. The overall environmental impact from production of the resources to increased fuel consumption etc will be massively worse than it is now.

Many things are even plain impossible without polymers.

Most people don't realize what a fantastic class of material polymers are. They enable our whole modern era. Their main problem is handling of the waste. This we need to figure out.