Further research to mass produce new inventions is probably the biggest factor, and that costs time and money! Just because you manage to build a prototype doesn't mean it's anywhere nears its full theoretical potential or ready for mass production ...
There should be a world tax for stuff like this :c "Clean the waters, space, reforestation" but humans will probably never reach that level, even if we do, ppl would just steal that money as they usually do.
It's not easy to commercialize new stuff without studying its effects over time.Look what happened to plastic its was commercialized so fast that it became a problem.
When this new material PDK comes onto the market, there has to be a global push to clean the planet of all the non biodegradable plastic on our lands and in the oceans and rivers. It should be made illegal for the current formulas for plastic to be used, 🌍
Exactly. Even just commercialising this and making the existing ones illegal will be a big eco friendly step. Cleaning up can be done gradually. Atleast no more will be added!! So happy seeing these technologies coming up. Also waiting for DNA data storage to be commercialised. Promising results so far. With current progress, in just more than a couple decades hopefully it might happen.
@@DheerajSukumaran the best way to accomplish this is for more govts to transition to a DEMOCRACY where such democracies would then be driven economically by free market CAPITALISM. The presence of the non-democratic govt types, and the direct results thereof, the world over, are one of the primary reasons environmental pollution is so prevalent.
The problem ist this attitude, you cannot fight human nature, throwing worthless things away is our natural behaviour pattern, we need to adapt solutions to it, otherwise so called soutions will never get accepted and so the problem will effectively not get solved and all your morality and solutions will turn out to be blocking working solutions and increasing the problems in a long turn perspective, which means, your comment is absolutely contra productive.
@@bradbradson4543 Because all the Corporations see is the bottom line, and as long as they fill there pockets with money, to hell with anything else, this is why we still use petrol
@@entyropy3262 very true: one cannot fight human nature. And, this is the PRIMARY REASON why, the world over, we need to have all govt types transition over to DEMOCRACY ... where such are to be driven by free market CAPITALISM. History, time and again, has shown this to all who have eyes to see. Human nature, however, is pressuring us toward the other direction; so, yes, the problem is the attitude.
In Belgium they have a system with Beer Bottles where as they bring them to a special recycling machine that in return gives a small amount of money per bottle (or dependant on weight). Why not create a similar system with plastic? Sure, not everyone would use it but it would still be a good start?
@@hamzaarshad2953 If you think someone would ever even think about hindering either of those cures then you clearly don't know how humanity works. A cure for both diseases are a gold mine ripe for picking there is just no way anyone would be stupid enough to ignore it.
I feel like they should do replay wall-e or remake it or something because of how good of a message it is and how bad we need that message. Wall-e was an amazing movie and it has a powerful message that is very relevant to us today.
We need to put greater focus on developing countries. I was just traveling recently, and there are far too many places without clean water, which forces people to buy plastic water bottles.
This along with using less plastics and developing microbes that eat plastics is probably the way to go. Realistically speaking, plastic is just too good of a material to get rid of completely.
It is a self-contradictory statement mate! It is not completely possible but yes, we can make 70% degrading plastics. Coming to the statement let me give you an example : people want a plastic bag to be good looking, with good strength to hold things, good insulation, water proof, light weight, shouldn't tear easily, resistant to puncture etc. We engineers can make that stuff easily, but when you want a plastic bag with really good properties and then expect it to vanish in soil (degrade), it is not possible. Remember the better the property of the plastic, harder it is to degrade. I am a Polymer Engineer and I'm well aware of the question you have asked here, hope you get some insights through my answer. Have a great day!
Sounds good and all but is it safe for human consumption & long term exposure this PDK & also the process to recycle this PDK material have Greenhouse emissions or anyother type of emissions like all the sulfuric acid is going to be dumped & also is even the process of recycling this is it safe? To many questions so little answered because what happens if also becomes like plastic but instead being plastic unrecyclable is the chemicals use to recycle then that is another problem we gonna have to deal with.
Which is awesome but they aren’t particularly fast acting or incredibly durable organisms which would make an organic “recycling farm” an unfortunate pipe dream. Those Ideonella sakaiensis are impressive for sure but in an industrial scale they simply aren’t fast enough to be a primary or even a secondary recycling method. However, it’s certainly promising to see such things occurring in nature as such solutions often allow us to take from it and work forward on an industrial scale
@@92Roar I mean, give nature enough time, and for sure there's an ample food supply out there. The real fun will be if these organisms manage to evolve to break down plastics efficiently, and what that'll do to modern infrastructure when they come for the rest of dinner.
Michael Wade The problem is survivability. They exist in temperate environmental conditions (their initial discovery was in a trash dump in Japan) and aren’t suited to survive extreme heat or cold or extreme flooding or wet conditions. As climate change ravishes our planet, it’s a serious chance that we’d wipe out those bacteria and fungus with us. If however, more durable strains survived though... well, there’s still the population issue with bacteria (ala ‘game of life’) but... who knows
@@92Roar Oh, I'm by no means arguing for banking on it, just that when everyone jumps to "but they found a bacteria that breaks down plastic", they routinely fail to see far enough to realize how close to "grey goo" such a "solution" would be, especially if it evolved in the wild. Who knows, though? Life, uh, finds a way.
Michael Wade Not sure we have too much to worry about on that front, there are plenty more pressing biological threats on society haha, like measles :( Such bacteria and fungus don’t simply eat any plastic or man-produced compound but specifically PET. Between basic hygiene standards, their poor survivability and the exceptionally huge amount of time required to break down even a single plastic bottle, it’s a grey goo scenario that’ll die in the cot
The uk government and local councils said they are recycling plastics, even making us use different bins, yet most of our plastic has been found in asia, a program on BBC on the 10th june shows the absolutely massive pile of old plastics.
We're spammed by miracle materials like these, and none of them commercialize due to 'problems'. Similarily, the current materials used also had their own mishaps in mass production but humanity needed them so we worked around them. Right now, the greed far outbalances the responsibility we must take in order to save the planet from our own mess.
Okay but the acid is a byproduct of petroleum refining right? And we are trying to get rid of petroleum products? So what is a good replacement and will that replacement also produce saltwater or is that strictly a byproduct of using that particular acid?
I honestly think even if the whole world recycles it is not going to help the problem of us having way too much plastic, also only about 8% of plastic is recycled. Yes recycling can help diminish the problem, but it is not enough to help our environment. It is hard to get all of the plastic wastes from our water, so I think is is better to not use plastic at all. I hope many more people would do that, it can start small and will later become big. If you are taking out food, ask them first what are they using to store your food, if they plastic ask for alternatives. If they do not have alternatives and you choose not to take their products, this will raise awareness to those people who are in control and thus they will use more eco friendly products. I don’t know if it is the best solution, but I do hope the people leading the science world can find a good solution soon.
Sadly this is the kind of videos this channel does. They know the science but the commercial incentive to make a video people want to hear overrides that. Clearly no new plastic can replace all the different types we use right now. From the amount of likes on the comment you can see the amount of dreamers out there.
Proper recycling of a plastic product is really the answer for the situation we are facing today. But what is the point of making something like that? When people will still choose to throw it away like garbage? My point is people will always find an easier way to discard items after their service life ends, and with statements like "it's just a single bag". The solution is to make people aware of the gravity of their mistakes. Making a bio-degradable plastic is not the solution, it is just another way of saying "hey I can throw it anywhere now!". P.s I'm a Polymer Engineer.
I assume the only way to remove that aspect of human tendencies (largely atleast) is to make the product pseudo-profitable to recycle. Charge extra for the purchase and offer a rebate for its return to designated locations. Even if one particular person throws it, there will often be someone impoverished willing to take it, assuming the profitability is reasonable.
Glass cannot replace plastic in all things. It's heavier and doesn't bend like plastics. You could replace something like plastic bottles with glass but you can's really make something like covers for printers's computers etc from glass.
Actually, the biodegradable Plastics tend to have a bigger ecological footprint then regular Plastics, in many cases. I actually wrote about this while ago for earther magazine, a subsidiary of Gizmodo. If you're interested in the numbers behind it all, feel free to read it www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=earther.gizmodo.com/are-reusable-bags-really-better-for-the-planet-1826567287/amp&ved=2ahUKEwjj4rOrwtviAhUDA6wKHaLjDMQQFjAAegQICxAB&usg=AOvVaw3frwLWhG28zlFtnhclVBrr&cf=1
Would be hard to introduce that kind of plastic if it is not resilient to acid, i mean we find acidic compound litterally EVERYWHERE, so making packaging out of that would be hard, and even if it worked, it would be used only for specific "non acidic product" which are a very small part of the plastic that could be replaced.
Maybe I missed something. Where's the part how this material is easily separable from all the additives and colourings that otherwise would plague "normal" plastics as the video has suggested?
Now it just needs to be proven safe for long term use and ingestion, open source, and cheaper then current plastics so we can push it's implementation to a majority of manufacturing.
Would it be feasible to use plastic to help agriculture/forests? Their combustion consumes oxygen and generates water and carbon dioxide, so that seems perfect for plants.
The 1950's thought the Wonders of Science would take us all into some glorious Utopia, but how's that working out. A new wonder plastic is nice, but global culture (and corporate culture) is all about cheap and disposable, regardless of an object's reusability or recyclability. You'd need a global culture shift to make any progress. What's more, if this new magic plastic isn't cheaper and easier to manufacture, or if hurts some corporation's profits / stock price, it won't get used. Corporate culture has a LONG history of putting personal profits ahead of any public safety or interest. Corporate Greed > Doing What's Right, which is part of the reason we in this mess to begin with.
Plastic bags are used before its cheap and strong. They can probably make paper bags which are just as good but cost some 10s of cents more. Well, the bottom line is, companies will choose the cheapest solution to remain competitive. This PDK sounds good and all, but how many more dollars more expensive would it be?
I see all these comments saying "You hear about this all the time but it never gets commercialized"... the problem is right there in the statement. This would be great for companies that already recycle their packaging to save costs, but what about the plastic companies? They wouldn't make money anymore. That's the problem, I want this as much or more than the next person of my generation. However, humans are always greedy and there will be resistance to this like there is to any new "green" product and you will eventually not hear about it anymore and forget about it.
I love how she casually says plastics "somehow" get into the ocean. Really, is this a mystery in 2019. How is plastic getting into the oceans? Who is dumping their garbage in the ocean?
That sounds great and all, but the core issue here is not as much the fact that plastics as they are now are hard enough to recycle, but the fact that most people tend to just throw recyclables away. So you would have to solve that issue as well, or at least find a way to alleviate it. Maybe incentivize recycling somehow? Find a way to effectively and efficiently separate this plastic from trash? Whatever the solution, people are going to need to change their recycling habits to make such a change happen.
I think a new plastic isn't the best option, we need to start investing in Graphene. it's one carbon atom thin, way stronger than steel, more flexible than plastic, electrically conductive, biocompatible and it could be used for phones, robotics, space anything. this material will change the world and i've seen it first hand doing research with it. we don't even have to sacrifice plastic, we can mix it with graphene and have an electrically conductive plastic!!
The problem with graphene is that can't be used in everyday items. Sure graphene can be used in phones etc. But if u stack graphene it looses its properties. Plus plastic is more cheap and versatile. It's more reasonable to create a bag made of plastic than graphene. Graphene is a revolutionary material but can be used in junction with plastic than replace it. Plus since manufacturing plastic is easy. Spending our current resources on developing plastic to be easily recyclable and eco friendly is better and more reasonable than spending our resources on trying fit graphene into every part of our lives and inventing new ways to make it meet the needs of the ppl, and plastic already does that. We should work on creating plastic that is better or good for the environment while also cleaning up all the mess we've caused. Graphene is great but it's not the solution for everything.
Abhishek Reddy I agree and disagree, i agree that at this moment, it is better to revolutionize plastics rather than start everything with a brand new unfamiliar product, however, i disagree that it couldn't be used for everything in the future.Graphene does lose its properties when stacked because that's essentially graphite, graphene is a mono layer of graphite that was isolated using a piece of tape and then dissolving it. However, graphene doesn't need to be stacked in the ways graphite is, we're finding new ways to stack it and even a monolayer is like 200 times stronger than steel. After we find a way to mass produce it, don't you think that we're going to start on graphene shopping bags, graphene phones, graphene SPACE ELEVATOR, there's infinite possibilities. It's also biocompatible, we can legit make electronic limbs that communicate with your nerves through graphene. In the long run, in my opinion of course, graphene is going to be everything and plastics of any type will be obsolete. it even solves all plastic environmental problems since it's like essentially coal like after a fire. My question is, why wouldn't it be used for everything?
@@rayojel3918 that's exactly what I'm saying man for now we should focus on improving plastic but if the graphene revolution happens we should totally go with that. For now graphene is not the solution to all our problems.
although the chemicals from plastic can be harmful, if we would make it harmless the problem is that in the ocean plastics are being eaten by marine animals and get stuck to those plastics just like glass bottles that doesn't have harmful chameicals
Well, it’ll be interesting to check back in 10 years to find out whether or not it has replaced our existing plastics. If it does, I doubt it’ll be making too many headlines, problems being quietly solved over decades don’t make headlines like problems and overnight revolutions do.
This is a good idea. Better if you aim for a neighborhood 3d printer usable by all in that community. Prevents guns from bring printed and it's more economically feasible. Plus they can add their 3d designs to the common pool.
Non-recyclable plastics wont break down either. And this type of recyclable plastic means you wont need to use new and new diesel oil / petroleum to make plastics. Oil that is finite in availability and that we need to make medicine and experiments with.
Exactly. There's soooo much stupid shit going on. It's the consumer mentality, we don't pay attention to this things and even buy an orange wrapped in plastic.... I've seen this. How is that necessary? Smh
I think Chemical recycling is the future of plastics. chemical recycling plants can recycle a much larger range of plastics and sorting is less important.
I bet multi billion dollar companies will try their hardest to stop anything like this from happening. Same thing happened to the efficient fuel a decade or 2 back
