r/todayilearned • u/what_is_the_deal_ • Jul 19 '21

TIL chemists have developed two plant-based plastic alternatives to the current fossil fuel made plastics. Using chemical recycling instead of mechanical recycling, 96% of the initial material can be recovered.

https://academictimes.com/new-plant-based-plastics-can-be-chemically-recycled-with-near-perfect-efficiency/
32.7k Upvotes

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999

u/BIGBIRD1176 Jul 19 '21

Sounds like corn and hemp plastic

'It can be composted!'

Fine print says no, must be composed in an industrial Composter

Green wash is everywhere

Grow your own food

349

u/iceynyo Jul 19 '21

Keep going, what's next after "Grow your own food"

1.2k

u/ReverendBelial Jul 19 '21

"Never do anything else with your life because you're too busy growing food"

472

u/iceynyo Jul 19 '21

I was hoping for more and more absurd:

Raise your own livestock

Mill your own flour

Write your own Reddit app

220

u/ReverendBelial Jul 19 '21

Oh then in that case uh...

Start your own ecosphere

129

u/BIGBIRD1176 Jul 19 '21

Eat plastic!

92

u/BrokenEye3 Jul 19 '21

Burn food as fuel!

65

u/Optimixto Jul 19 '21

Eat fuel, grow plastic, recycle living organisms.

35

u/mak10z Jul 19 '21

Soylent fuel is people!

4

u/BrotherChe Jul 19 '21

It's what plants crave!

2

u/BackSixByNow Jul 19 '21

We're what's for dinner!

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20

u/[deleted] Jul 19 '21

We basically doing that with corn derived ethanol, the most wasteful and inefficient way to get fuel beside just drilling it out of the ground.

2

u/Lehk Jul 19 '21

IIRC the function of ethanol is to help the fuel octane rating without using persistent environmental toxins.

2

u/loafsofmilk Jul 19 '21

Ethanol biofuels are not really used for environmental reasons at all. If you look at the fuel standards for different countries, the ones with high ethanol contents as standard are typically not bastions of environmental activism, off the top of my head I think Brazil requires around 20% minimum of ethanol in their fuel, whereas the EU allows a maximum of like 5%.

I'm not saying that ethanol can't be made sustainably, or even that Brazil doesn't do it sustainably, but that is not the reason they use it.

Ethanol can be pretty bad for normal vehicles, it can cause sooty deposits and other issues. There are massive numbers of alternative fuels available anyway, ethanol is just a bit ahead of the production curve due to Brazil and the us paving the way with corn and sugarcane crops respectively. FAME, DME, and other synthetic or biofuels will probably become more important as they are better developed.

1

u/lambda-man Jul 19 '21

You said that exactly right. It's the most wasteful and inefficient besides drilling it out of the ground. In order from most to least efficient.

  1. Corn derived ethanol
  2. Drilling it out of the ground

Gotta start somewhere and scrapping every ICE and jet engine in the world isn't the right place to start.

1

u/sdmitch16 Jul 19 '21

Greetings world. I'm uninformed and want to know the alternative way to power planes.

1

u/VaATC Jul 19 '21

Baby steps

1

u/mister_flibble Jul 19 '21

Burn life's house down - with the lemons!

40

u/DragonGuard Jul 19 '21

Already way ahead of you!

Unfortunately microplastics are in everything we eat. They have recently found it in the placentas of unborn babies.

39

u/PlumpDuke Jul 19 '21

Eat the unborn!!!

52

u/neofac Jul 19 '21

Can't, the state of California tells me they contain cancer causing chemicals in them.

6

u/CyanideTacoZ Jul 19 '21

posting this gives you cancer according to the state of California, checkmate

3

u/[deleted] Jul 19 '21

Not if you immolate them first.

1

u/CanalAnswer Jul 19 '21

That’s why you bury them in burlap for a week before you eat them. Duh.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 19 '21

Fortunately the chemicals are only known to cause cancer as long as you're inside the state of California.

7

u/baby_fart Jul 19 '21

Compost the unborn.

1

u/cavalier2015 Jul 19 '21

A modest proposal

1

u/Pants4All Jul 20 '21

The placenta is an organ grown in the mother’s womb during gestation alongside the fetus.

5

u/TheSpaghettiEmperor Jul 19 '21

Holy shit, he's cracked the code

4

u/CanalAnswer Jul 19 '21

It’s fantastic!

3

u/LoL4Life Jul 19 '21

Come on Barbie, let's go party!

4

u/[deleted] Jul 19 '21

Oo interesting scifi plot. To combat the waste crisis, humans bio engineer half animal half machine creatures that sniff out and eat plastic. As plastic starts disappearing, the creatures' hunger drives them to hunt humans to consume the microplastics we've ingested over years of polluting the environment and our bodies.

1

u/series-hybrid Jul 19 '21

Remember, the plastic must be shredded very fine snd mixed 50/50% with food.

Never eat pure plastic shred.

1

u/Lighthouseamour Jul 19 '21

Humans already do it’s in our food already

8

u/Junoviant Jul 19 '21

Biodome buddddy.

2

u/HemHaw Jul 19 '21

weasel flapping noises

12

u/greggles_ Jul 19 '21

with blackjack… and hookers!

9

u/ReverendBelial Jul 19 '21

An ecosphere with hookers as the foundation block of the food chain.

3

u/monsto Jul 19 '21

If you want to bake an apple pie from scratch, first you must invent the universe.

2

u/Lawsuitup Jul 19 '21

I’m sure you meant Biodome

1

u/Zahven Jul 19 '21

My actual dream as a kid was to have my own ecosystem that I could look after, it was my when-I'm-rich plan.

1

u/darthjoey91 Jul 19 '21

I believe they’re called Bio-Domes and come with free Pauly Shores.

21

u/ArmanDoesStuff Jul 19 '21

Build you own country. Start your own government. Drill for you own oil/gas.

7

u/CFL_lightbulb Jul 19 '21

It’s ok, I drilled it myself!

6

u/iceynyo Jul 19 '21 edited Jul 19 '21

It's only oil if it's from the oil region of France. Otherwise it's just sparkling hydrocarbons.

16

u/Relevant_Rev Jul 19 '21

Suck your own dick

Eat some chicken strips

Turn into a jet

Fly into the sun

5

u/iceynyo Jul 19 '21

I'm a baws

3

u/SkymaneTV Jul 19 '21

“I’m sorry, could you repeat that first part?”

(⌐■_■)

”…nope.”

1

u/Relevant_Rev Jul 19 '21

"you suck your own dick and die, every day?"

1

u/gentlecrab Jul 19 '21

Hell yeahhh

2

u/threeye8finger Jul 19 '21

Bomb the Russians while you're at it

7

u/texasrigger Jul 19 '21

Raise your own livestock

That's really not that absurd. Even the largest cities in the US have ordinances that allow chickens and other small scale livestock like quail and rabbit are a great fit for a suburban or even urban home. It's extremely rewarding and a bunch of fun. Meat definitely isn't for everyone but it's an option too. Livestock of any scale are a real commitment but it's comforting knowing where your food comes from and what goes in to it.

2

u/iceynyo Jul 19 '21

"Which of you chooses to be my sustenance this supper?" Is my favorite game to play

1

u/baby_fart Jul 19 '21

Join an Amish colony.

1

u/lobaron Jul 19 '21

You have to create your own computer from scratch before you can write the app.

1

u/nanomolar Jul 19 '21

Hey writing the app is the easy part. Mining the metals needed for the semiconductors, refining them and making the semiconductors, building a working computer from scratch are the hard parts.

And then you have to write an operating system. One guy wrote an entire operating system himself - he was schizophrenic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TempleOS?wprov=sfti1

1

u/[deleted] Jul 19 '21

r/homesteading gang rise up

1

u/Liberatedhusky Jul 19 '21

Coding is the one place where reinventing the wheel doesn't really apply unless it's absolutely necessary. Plus Alien Blue worked so well that Reddit bought the app and made it the official Reddit App.

1

u/HonorMyBeetus Jul 19 '21

Too be fair, you can buy a little electric flour mill for pretty cheap these days.

1

u/alt-fact-checker Jul 19 '21

With blackjack!

1

u/MrMalta Jul 19 '21

Become a fish to restock fish population

1

u/iceynyo Jul 19 '21

Nice, I remember that episode of Interspecies Reviewers

1

u/Iron_Maiden_666 Jul 19 '21

If you want to build anything from scratch, I'm not smart enough to remember the rest of the quote.

1

u/ultimatebob Jul 19 '21

Hey now... my version of Reddit will be entirely powered by composting toilets for livestock! It will be the perfect renewable energy source for this platform, considering the amount of bullshit you can find around here.

1

u/hvfnstrmngthcstl Jul 19 '21

I feel personally attacked.