I feel like soluble plastic can’t be a good thing actuallyEdit: the plastic chemically decomposes in water, it does not dissolve
Looks like it’s not an issue fortunately.
Aida said the new material is as strong as petroleum-based plastics but breaks down into its original components when exposed to salt. Those components can then be further processed by naturally occurring bacteria, thereby avoiding generating microplastics that can harm aquatic life and enter the food chain.
Yeah I reacted to the title and then read the article and edited lol
Given the username, the immediate emotional reaction when expecting damage to ocean life is understandable
Unironically, I am passionate about marine environmentalism lol
Same here buddy! I try to limit plastic use as much as possible, or reuse any plastic items I already have as much as I can to reduce consumption
So using this for frozen foods, or takeaway containers isn’t advised. Those are basically all sodium.
The perfect material for Tesla’s new cyberboat
I have a name for that boat: Cybersunk
Thats very fitting, I would also accept CyberD (cyber dissolved)
I think that’s a mod for CP2077…
Is that shorthand for the amount of Petabyte of illegal stuff Leon the rat has at home?
It is also a short for cyberDick, in honor of their CEO.
Perfect since he’s being invited to Russia now. They can share their know-how of sinking ships.
It dissolves…but into what? Sounds like a recipe for a petroleum salt water mix that’s probably just as toxic as melted plastic, unless all the petroleum is removed.
It doesn’t seem to be based on petroleum, since they’re explicitly comparing it to petroleum-based plastics…
There also are other non-petroleum based plastics that dissolve in water. This part is not new. E.g. polyvinyl alcohol is used widely.
What’s new about this one is that it specifically needs salt to dissolve and they claim it’s otherwise relatively sturdy. So maybe it could be used instead of pet bottles for drinks? Or maybe they’re not quite there yet but it’s a new step in that direction…
For anyone wondering about where, just as an example, polyvinyl is: Polyvinyl acetate (i.e. PVA) is the stuff that wood glue is typically made out of. It’s also the binder used for those bird seed bells.
…It does indeed dissolve in the water. In the rain, certainly, which any owner of a bird seed bell could tell you.
It’s a bit of a stretch calling it a plastic, as it’s not petroleum based from what I’ve read.
This sounds borderline miraculous, and I have a feeling there’s bound to be a catch. I hope not, but I’m just too cynical.
The catch is that it’s useless in most plastics applications, where you really don’t want it to dissolve easily. Probably more catches, but that’s the one I see right away.
Also probably gonna turn out it dissolves into smaller plastics, perfectly sized for penetrating the blood-brain-barrier.
Edit: I get it, no new technology has ever had issues with safety and efficacy uncovered after entering mass production and being discarded with reckless abandon in our environment
I apologize to the articles authors for my cynicism, it is clear from the article that nothing bad could possibly come from allowing this new plastic to dissolve in our oceans. It is nice to see plastic pollution has been definitively solved for the rest of time and we no longer have to worry about it.
Did you guys even read the article?
If you read the article, you’ll find that they claim it’s broken down into something which is processed by naturally occurring bacteria. I would have preferred that they linked to an actual research article for details, but this is explicitly not one of these “degradable” plastics that just dissolves into microplastic.
Article says it dissolves into components
It dissolves with salt. Our sweat will melt it
Will that make it easier for our bodies to absorb it?
Ah, of course. Although, they did mention coatings to protect the material, but it does sound like it will be more fragile than existing plastic.
The catch would be the reactor. An EVA type of plastic reactor can output more than 12 tons per hour these days.
It just accelerated the microplastic pipeline.
And are we gonna start using this on a mainstream scale?
I think some of y’all are missing a lot of packaging use cases other than food. But even in the food sector, there are dry things like pasta, beans, and rice that don’t have salt in them. If it really is as strong as a petroleum plastic for these items, it could eliminate tons of micro plastic.
What does it dissolve into? 🪿 Wait, what does it dissolve into? 🗣️ 🪿
From the article:
Aida said the new material is as strong as petroleum-based plastics but breaks down into its original components when exposed to salt. Those components can then be further processed by naturally occurring bacteria, thereby avoiding generating microplastics that can harm aquatic life and enter the food chain.
As salt is also present in soil, a piece about five centimetres (two inches) in size disintegrates on land after over 200 hours, he added.
The material can be used like regular plastic when coated, and the team are focusing their current research on the best coating methods, Aida said. The plastic is non-toxic, non-flammable, and does not emit carbon dioxide, he added.
So I think the next thing the goose wants to know is, what’s it being coated with?
Is it made of snails?
(/s, in case anyone wants to take that seriously)
That was my first thought, a tide pod also rapidly dissolves in sea water, we shouldn’t be dumping those in the ocean though.
But then how will we maintain the ocean breeze scent?
The tweenagers hosing on Axe in coastal cities will take care of that I think.
It dissolves into salt water.
Except it doesn’t dissolve, this is not the term they should be using, you can’t just dry out the water and get the plastic back. It breaks down into other things. I’m pretty sure an ocean full of dissolved plastic would be a way worse ecological disaster than the current microplastic problem…
I’ve seen like 3-4 articles about this now and they all use the term dissolve and it’s pissing me off.
The material can be used like regular plastic when coated,
Coated with what? If you say PFAS, this is worse than microplastics.
You see the thing is, the point of plastic is that it doesn’t dissolve easily. I can see this having some niche applications, but this won’t be replacing most plastics any time soon.
Its specifically sensitive to salt, so you can use it for anything with little or no salt without issue. Also it would be perfect for basically all packaging applications that dont involve food but do require an airtight seal. So you could probably replace the majority of all single use plastic packaging/containers with it.
To be fair, this was originally the point of plastic. The primary point of plastic today is that it is an extremely cheap material that you can mould into pretty much any shape.
Need a bag to carry stuff? Plastic.
Packaging for toothpicks? Plastic.
Spacers inside an electric circuit? Plastic.
Packaging for clothes? Plastic.
Fake plant? Plastic.
Part of the problem is that we’re using a wonder-material that lasts forever (plastic) for a bunch of mundane shit where we don’t need it, because that wonder-material turns out to be the cheapest material around as well.
Yeah, fair enough. That’s a great point. I will update my opinion of this advancement.
Ah but imagine the eager faces of Logitech’s execs when they realize they could make their mice dissolve under your fingers and offer a subscription for replacements.
Does it actually break down? Or does it just melt into a cloud of microplastics?
I hope they can tune it to react only to a very specific type of salt water range or else it will not be applicable very often.
And I love this. More if this please
Or we can, you know, have waxed paper?
Also, I thought we’ve already mainstreamed starch-based plastics.
Last but not least, we’ve had cellophane pretty much since the industrial revoltion. The current issue has been the productionlike containing toxic materials, but the end product itself is biodegradable. Perhaps we can improve on that.
So then what can it be used for, other than being decomposed? Doesn’t almost all food contain salt, and human sweat as well? It’s not really useful on earth then, is it? Maybe for unmanned spacecrafts?
Well, the dream material would be some that is stable during use and then immediately falls apart when disposed. But that’s not how things usually work, so anything that decomposes fairly quickly cannot be used to store food for example, as it would just mix with the food. And anything that is stable enough to store food does not decompose in a hundred years or so.
Sounds great for non-food packages, such as small electronics, toys, etc. Anything that currently comes in a blister pack.
Depends on how much the salt content in the air at coastal places affect it. But if it doesn’t that much, then sure, sounds good. Of course, also the intermediate products of decomposition should be nontoxic in that case.
I guess that’s part of the reason they’re exploring coatings - something to slow down the degradation during regular usage.
Then you can just used coated cardboard
Product packaging for non-foods
huh. happy to know we’ll never hear from this again! thanks capitalism!
