Plastic Waste

For the past few days news on the plastic eating enzymes been offered as the solution for some of our plastic waste.

Is anyone old enough to remember the BBC Doomwatch program where aircraft were falling out of the sky because the plastic in them was being recycled this way?

Reply to
alan_m
Loading thread data ...

A memory of some plastic eating bug that got out of control has been bugging me since I heard the news. I had thought it was based on a Sci-fi novel.

Tim

Reply to
Tim+

It is an enzyme that can digest PET discovered by researchers at Kyoto.

formatting link

Several biological polymers also exist that degrade in the environment but they are nowhere near as good as engineering plastics. OK for golf tees and similar small objects that often get lost though.

Never been particularly commercially successful an ICI/Zeneca invention sold to Monsanto and then changed hands a couple more times since.

formatting link

Yes. Plastic components turning to grey goo.

ISTR Prince Charles has wittered on about it too.

formatting link

Reply to
Martin Brown

When I saw the item on BBC News this morning, I said "Doomwatch: The Plastic Eater". She couldn't remember.

It was attacking the plastic encapsulation of (SSI) chips, I remember.

Reply to
Bob Eager

I am pretty sure they did books of some of the more popular episodes, and I had that one at some stage. Not very good, as is mostly the case with converted scripts.

I just had a look, and I don't seem to have it any more.

Reply to
Bob Eager

Yes despite the hammy acting very scary. This I think was on the back of the Prince Charles Grey goo speech.

Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

the stick melted !...yes I remember that......funny how things stick in your mind.......

Reply to
Jim.GM4DHJ ...

found it...

formatting link

Reply to
Jim.GM4DHJ ...

formatting link

Reply to
Jim.GM4DHJ ...

PC _is_ grey goo!

On the subject of plastic waste, many of the fields around here are covered in polythene sheet ATM. From a distance they look like sheets of water, until you realise they're not horizontal. They are there to cover rows of potatoes, to warm the soil and bring them on early, to compete with 'new' potatoes from Egypt and Malta.

After harvesting the spuds in the Summer, the poly sheet is now dirty with soil etc. and the farmer has to pay for it to be recycled, as it has to be washed, and that's expensive. It's usually just bundled up and dumped in the corner of a field, sometimes set fire to on a still Summer's evening giving rise to a column of black smoke visible for miles.

Reply to
Chris Hogg

No, not if I want to live.

Reply to
Bob Eager

You call your SWMBO "Doomwatch" ??

Reply to
Tim Streater

It all depends on whether the substance left after its been eaten is of any use or less harmful. Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

It was Prince Charles who was to blame, but Doomwatch certainly did not help. Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

If I recall it was accidental in the doomwatch story. If ever you develop something like that you need to also make sure you can destroy your creation in case it escapes out of the confines of its intended use case. I can see this increasingly being deployed as a weapon. Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

Left to its own devices the organism will metabolise the plastic back to CO2 and H2O but by stealing its enzyme the researchers got something approximating the monomers/components that when polymerised form PET.

How bad you think mobile low MW phthalates are depends a bit on gender.

formatting link

It isn't the only way to do it see 10.3 in

formatting link

Reply to
Martin Brown

Oh no! We'll be inundated with Grey Goo! (That was the nanobots. What happened to them?)

Reply to
Max Demian

Andromeda strain?

Reply to
dennis

Andy Hamilton mentioned this on the BBC Radio 4 New Quiz. He said his plastic shopping bags always biodegrade as he lifts the shopping out of the car boot...

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Rymans had a batch of plastic bags a few years ago that disintegrated if you kept them in the drawer for a few months. They had a message on them that told you to keep them for reuse.

Reply to
Max Demian

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.