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Comment by rmason | Hacker News Reader

The unanswered question is what will you do with the mushrooms after they've munched on petroleum or plastic? My guess is that you're not going to want them on your pizza cause they might just be toxic. Will we only be replacing one kind of waste with another?

For plastics the answer is out there, biodegradable plastic made from corn. It has to overcome two problems:

1. It's slightly more expensive

2. If we want it to degrade rapidly we need to make an investment in plants to do it. Otherwise you're looking at 100 years versus 300+ years for regular plastic.

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I think for plastics the right answer is standardization. I know that's not people want to hear, but I don't think there is any way around it.

1. Ban all single use plastics that can be replaced somewhat economically with biodegradable materials (with a small price increase, maybe 2-5-10%).

2. Standardize plastic container compositions, shapes and sizes in a huge ISO catalog. EVERY product a company makes/uses has to be from this catalog. Companies can add another category one by going through the standardization process. Marketing can be done by applying biodegradable materials to the exterior.

Basically have a few material compositions:

- high strength/heavy

- medium strength/medium weight

- reduced strength/light

Have a standardized set of sizes:

- 100ml (and US equivalent)

- 250ml

- 330ml

- 500ml

...

Plus a standardized set of shapes for each size.

At the end of the day you'd get:

3 x number of sizes (probably 40-50 sizes?) x number of shapes (probably 10-15 shapes per size?) = 1200 - 2250 categories. And I'm being generous here, I think we should probably keep this total number under 500, ideally under 100, but I don't think such a low number is feasible.

Then charge a deposit for each plastic container and upon container return give this deposit back.

Same thing for glass, actually.

This would make plastic containers reusable, even across brands, and would probably reduce our plastic waste by orders of magnitude.

Heck, the same thing could probably be done for plastic bags.

However, this plan would also reduce plastic consumption (and production, so $$$) by orders of magnitude, so I don't expect it to ever pass a solid lobbying plan.

I have some friends who have recently started a business based on this model. They don't have a site up yet, but are doing some small scale tests in Colorado. I'm happy to direct anyone who is interested toward them.

Also standardize the composition and coloring. That's the major problem with recycling. I say transparent and one opaque variant for photoprotection.

I have included composition in my description ;-)

And coloring, well, a part of it would be composition and the rest should IMO temporary marketing coloring on top of the base composition (i.e. paint the bottle with something biodegradable).

Color should not be part of the standard as it would make the "support matrix" unsustainable and companies should not be allowed to "pass the buck" back to us consumers.

What's the problem you are trying to solve here?

In general for the kinds of problems that intersect with economics, taxes are more efficient than outright bans.

A) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch

B) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microplastics

Plastic containers of all types should be reusable and there should also be incentives for reusing them. We don't make a screw, use it to build something and then discard it once we disassemble the thing.

For the last point, I'd definitely want to see examples where taxes are more efficient than bans. Everything I've seen and read (and I like to read a lot), points the other way around.

So I'd definitely want to read some studies that says that tax increases are better than bans.

As a single counterpoint, we've been taxing cigarettes a ton for several decades. Smoking rates have gone down, but only extremely slowly. It took decades. So if you consider partially solving an issue after several decades "efficient", then yeah, taxes are efficient.

Sounds like proper sewage processing and landfills would be better and faster solutions to A and B.

Then we can also talk about Asia being the primary source of the trash in oceans...

1. People throw trash everywhere. You'll see trash on Mount Everest, you'll see it in a random forest in Eastern Europe.

2. Landfills are not enough. Rich countries just "export" their trash for storage in poor countries.

We're just making too much trash, there's no "proper" or "better". Reduce, reuse, recyle. Recycle is mostly a lie.

We need reduce and reuse.

In Poland it became harder to export trash to other countries, so instead landfill owners started burning all their trash to make space for new. Commentators refer to it jokingly as "storing trash in the cloud".

> People throw trash everywhere. You'll see trash on Mount Everest, you'll see it in a random forest in Eastern Europe.

That's true, but doesn't mean much. Just like for poisons, dosage is important.

> As a single counterpoint, we've been taxing cigarettes a ton for several decades. Smoking rates have gone down, but only extremely slowly. It took decades. So if you consider partially solving an issue after several decades "efficient", then yeah, taxes are efficient.

Economists usually take into account that people also get utility out of eg using plastic straws or smoking cigarettes. They are by and large not a very judgy lot.

Taxes just make it so that the private cost-benefit decision can take into account (ie 'internalize') the costs to the public.

Your examples of screws is great to illustrate this! We don't ban the discarding of screws, and it would be somewhat silly to do so.

> For the last point, I'd definitely want to see examples where taxes are more efficient than bans. Everything I've seen and read (and I like to read a lot), points the other way around.

What are you reading? I am talking about efficiency in the same sense as it's used in economics. And taxes being more efficient than bans is pretty much Econ 101. But I can dig up some links, if you want to.

This is great, though I wonder what we would do about laminates. For example, a can of cola has a plastic lining to protect the aluminium from degrading, tetrapak containers are laminates to prevent leakage, counter tops and flatpak furniture tends to be plastic-wrapped chipboard.

A lot of these laminates can be replaced, but some are rather harder to. Progressive taxation based on recyclability is an easy win which incentivizes correct packaging (and transport packaging as well) and would be an easier sell. Additional, homogeneous packaging would be taxed less.

The branding that goes on the packaging is still open to design, so there's room for differentiation there - a necessary component for adoption.

Lastly, standardizing recyclability across the state/county/country would be useful as then tourists etc. can also understand a simple recycling message.

Soft drinks can go back to glass bottles and returns with deposits. This works extremely well with beer, wine, and liquor bottles.

I wish we did this more.

Where do wine and liquor bottles have a bottle deposit? Around here is only soda and beer.

Point A: Biostarch PLA wastes huge amounts of energy to convert biodegradeable starch in to nominally biodegradeable PLA. It would be better for everyone to (1) move to non single use plastics; or (2) recycle plastic (very problematic and rarely economical); instead of (3) wasting the energy and CO2 to fabricate biostarch PLA just for the option of throwing it away carelessly.

Point B: As I have spent months of time on thermoforming research (just visited 9 machine manufacturers last week and am currently buying a line to produce permanent parts) I will try to raise a few points as to why this plan might also be difficult technically. Many parts are custom produced for specific use cases. Moulds degrade over time and may not produce the same caliber of part early, middle and late run. Some people require different polymers for valid engineering reasons (optical, thermal or structural properties, joining/printing/other post-process compatibility, etc.) Say you have a mould and you use virgin material versus some other material. Polymer selection affects all properties. Thickness affects thermal characteristics and structural properties. Equipment and ambient environment state including thermals, air particulates and humidity, mould state, die state, air pressure, configured cycle time, coolant circuit state, type and care of handling after forming. However, the kicker is food safety (a legal requirement in most markets) - rarely guaranteed outside of purely virgin material (there are exceptions: I believe there is a UK recycler that does it) and food safe material is the dominant single use plastics market.

I know my plan doesn't cover everything and there are a lot of exceptions.

But if we don't want to destroy the planet, we have to do something like it. Everyone thinks they're special. Why does Coca Cola have a different bottle shape compared to Pepsi or to Fanta? That makes no sense.

We should turn the approach on its head with what is a dangerous material: you should have to prove that what you're doing deserves being made. Have you thought about the consequences of your actions when this product is mass produced, 30 years from now? I doubt many have.

The standard catalog could have more axes, such as different material types, mine was just an example.

Get 10 world famous materials engineers and have them come out with a catalog that covers the most widespread uses.

This doesn't need to be a 100% solution, it needs to cover, say, 95%. The rest of the 5% could be treated as exceptions and you'd have to get a license. Yes, some creativity would be lost. But you could for example, exempt some smaller producers (if your factory makes fewer than 10k units per year, in total, no need for approval, just show us the proof that you're only going to produce that much).

But again, plastics have proven to be dangerous materials, in an insidious way. They're not explosives but they do a lot of damage.

Regulation can help. If we regulate though, perhaps we should ban the CPG industry as it stands. Look for example at how Australia has forced cigarettes to be sold in blank packages. Remove the marketing element from packaging, and have the supply chain utilize larger, shared, reuseable storage containers for larger quantities of currently individually packaged items. Force the collection of goods in customer-owned reusable packages. Many places already do it at the level of banning or charging for plastic bags and banning low grade/thin/single use plastic bags. We should apply the same thinking to single use packaging in general and request that people BYO packaging for all bulk items.

ie. Don't just remove custom plastics, or move to the lesser option of recycling, rather remove the vast majority of single use plastics in the consumer supply chain and simultaneously reduce the effect of retail packaging advertising on consumer behavior to force a real change.

PS. I don't think a courageous change on this level is ever likely to occur in the west (well, perhaps Europe?). I think it is far more likely to occur in China.

I slept on this and it occurred to me that this is exactly how markets in Asia traditionally operate. Some of them still operate like that. However, they are being rapidly destroyed by the combination the supermarket chains, and the automobile culture/parking lot nightmare they engender, and convenience stores, which encourage unhealthy snacking in lieu of real ingredient purchase and preparation, and small quantity purchasing (such as single use plastic wrapped shampoo and soap sachets).

I think you’re spot on. The simplicity of your solution suggests, though, that the root of problem isn’t knowing what to do.

Well, my last paragraph was:

> However, this plan would also reduce plastic consumption (and production, so $$$) by orders of magnitude, so I don't expect it to ever pass a solid lobbying plan.

That's why we're being buried in trash, because people are making money from that trash.

Plastic is effective and cheaper than other solutions. It is lighter, generally efficiently stackable, and easier to ship. The plastic waste problem is therefore less a grand moneymaking conspiracy and more about cost savings for businesses and consumers which, under a traditional capitalist model, do not account for the 'tragedy of the commons' - ie. completely ignore environmental or social concerns except in cases of post-facto regulatory action.

This isn't theoretical any more. My state (tamil nadu/india) has banned plastic bags and cups .. generally what we might think of as single use. You have to take your own bags or (in some shops) buy reusable+degradable cloth bags. There are also grocery shops like "eco indian" to which you take your own containers, fill them up, weigh and pay. That's how we used to do it when I was a kid, but it all went plastic after that. Glad to see it coming back. Covid threw another curve ball but the ban hasn't changed. Next up should be food packaging.

Damn this sounds so advanced coming from the USA. COVID massively disrupted reusable bag effort here in CA, USA.

I really like the idea of standardization. Even if there are 500 standards, that's much better than an unbounded number.

Regulation would certainly force the issue, but one way or another the consumer packaged goods industry (and other industries) need to get their heads around focusing competition around everything BUT packaging.

When packaging has become standard, no one competes there any more. If everyone has the mindset that this is expected and OK, just focus competitive efforts elsewhere -- product quality, branding, better ingredients/parts, lower price, whatever. Your packaging design/pollution budget is now free for other opportunities.

There is some advantage in selecting the right standard size, but you either know what your industry is doing or you pay a consultant to tell you which one to try next.

What you don't do is spend lots more money designing your own custom packaging that may or may not help sales and will never be recycled.

And then there is the entire packaging design industry, not a small one, who will not like this at all. Anyone want to play devil's advocate and guess what they might say?

> When packaging has become standard, no one competes there any more. If everyone has the mindset that this is expected and OK, just focus competitive efforts elsewhere -- product quality, branding, better ingredients/parts, lower price, whatever. Your packaging design/pollution budget is now free for other opportunities.

They can still brand the packaging. Just use biodegradable, safe glues, paper, paint, etc. to put on top of the actual bottle. Yes, the bottles will be a bit generic, but there's a lot you can do with a bit of creativity.

What they're doing is like developers rewriting the Python library 1 billion times because they all want to be special snowflakes. Though rewriting does happen, the vast majority of developers build on top of the standard library, not besides it.

> And then there is the entire packaging design industry, not a small one, who will not like this at all. Anyone want to play devil's advocate and guess what they might say?

When a few benefit and many lose, that's called corruption. Any proposal will have some people against it, you can't please everyone all the time.

I was discussing this with a friend the other night.

I can envisage a future where plastic packaging is all entirely standardised and left as virgin as possible for recycling - no dyes, no printed elements or thin film decoration.

Instead, basic (/complex, if you like) low to medium resolution laser-etched graphics and descriptions, and any fancy-ass graphical marketing/advertising visible through whatever spectacles/phone AR is popular.

Or perhaps encourage "container for life" storage with refill machines. e.g. purchase a long-lasting detergent container, and refill it at a detergent dispensing machine.

Otherwise you'd need to provide an easy way or sorting returned containers (by type) so they go back into circulation. Maybe QR-codes on bottles and "smart bins" that pay you for disposing of them?

> The unanswered question is what will you do with the mushrooms after they've munched on petroleum or plastic? My guess is that you're not going to want them on your pizza cause they might just be toxic.

Believe me or not, I ate that yeast grown on petroleum paraffin once.

At the time of extreme food scarcity in Russia, we had people eating animal feed produced from yeast grown on paraffin. It's called paprin in Russian.

So, knowing that most of petroleum hydrocarbons are toxic if ingested, the result may be more amendable than the source product.

As an even simpler example, hydrocarbons can be burned to water and C2O. You can feed those to plants just like anything else.

(But going that route would waste a lot of energy.)

That would never make sense to do. The atmosphere is heavily enriched with CO2 already, so plants don't need help obtaining it. If you want to grow plants in an area where water is so scarce you have to import it, but you have oil, don't burn your money: sell the oil and buy water.

Uh, yes? You'd be a fool to burn oil just as a source as CO2 and water.

I didn't say that's what you should do or that it makes sense.

Merely as an illustration that you can start with some toxic substances and feed them to plants, and be very happy eating those plants.

Of course, that doesn't apply to everything. Heavy metals stay bad for you.

Heh.

The product disrupted hormonal and water balance, causing edema to form throughout the body of the animals, reported by the Russian business consultancy, which brought studies from Bashkiria State University.

“Meat obtained from animals fed with Paprin contained an accumulation of abnormal amino acids that were incorporated into the membranes of nerve cells, thus disrupting the process of conducting a normal nerve impulse,” said Raisa Bashirova, principal investigator at Bashkiria State University, who added that it was even harmful to humans to paintings with Paprin:

“Factory staff and local citizens were presenting diseases such as canker sores and bronchial asthma. “ In the 1990s, almost the entire production of bioprotein in Russia was stopped. Gaprin, although it had proved to be safe and efficient, could not compete with rather cheap imported protein feedstuffs, which began to land on the local market in large quantities. Now, several decades later, bioprotein production in Russia seems to be getting a second chance.

From: http://benisonmedia.com/bioprotein-may-bring-self-sufficienc...

I am not sure if you explored the links in the article but https://aem.asm.org/content/77/17/6076.full#aff-1 states that plastic is not "munched" (absorbed/attached) but biodegraded (broken down/dissolved) by the fungi. Also, the kind of fungi used is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pestalotiopsis and that's not a kind you'd ever have in your pizza, I guess.

If those mushrooms truly degraded the petroleum or plastic into something harmless, they can be simply turned into compost.

Exactly. There's a big difference between merely absorbing plastic and petroleum, and metabolising it. The former might be nice if you want to collect microplastics or clean up oil spills or something, but the latter would actually get rid of the plastic and the oil and turn it into something more ecologically useful.

Last I checked (circa 2017), bioplastics like PLA had poor heat resistance. This made them unsuitable for certain applications like bushings or gasket seals. IIRC "heat resistant" varieties of PLA are rated up to 120 Celsius, which is good for many applications but not all e.g. automotive seals, washers, and bearings.

Footnote: I was going to compare the properties of heat-resistant PLA to those of PTFE aka Teflon, since the latter is commonly used in heat-resistant applications, but after some Googling I've learned PTFE is not petroleum-based.

I'm very much not an expert on this, but I believe there's an additional problem with plastic made from corn:

3. It requires huge land areas to grow enough corn to make enough plastic for the whole world's population, which requires clearing huge expanses of existing forests and other natural areas.

Mushrooms and mycelia can be used as a resource to fabricate textiles, packaging, bricks etc.

Also, if the mushrooms grow only on what they can break down it's totally safe to eat them. It has to be a controlled process. Not just trying to grow mushrooms on a heap of trash you'd otherwise just burn.

Having said that - even mushrooms won't liberate us from using resources more responsibly.

"The mushrooms’ enzymes re-manufactured the hydrocarbons into carbohydrates, fungal sugars,"

I wonder if the process would be similar for plastics. If so, it could then be used as feed. I don't see any information, but the fungus grown from plastic might not be toxic.

when we move to renewables, the production of oil will go down, and plastics as a byproduct will decrease in supply increasing its price, so I'm predicting point 1 to happen in time.

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