Hacker News Reader

Comment by getmeinrn | Hacker News Reader

Random thought, but if we extrapolate the path we're on in terms of biodegradability and sustainability, it's not ridiculous to assume that a very advanced version of us would have developed the technology and legislation to ensure that all products biodegrade safely within X years.

View on HN

This doesn't undo all the stuff that already is in the ground and rivers everywhere.

After a long time hanging around, some organism might evolve that eats it though

Which happened for all fossils already and they are still there.

Fair point, although not all of them, and not all of those that do remain. If styrofoam ever starts rotting, maybe the styro-philes will eat 100% of each cup and poop out only completely normal organic matter. Nobody will ever find it!

Can we develope such a microorganism please?

Worms were discovered that eat styrofoam. There was a lot about it going on the news last summer[0].

0: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/superworms-eat-an...

That is something, but apparently not quite what I want:

"Rinke and his colleagues are not suggesting that superworms should be released into landfills or polluted landscapes to munch through mountains of plastic"

Still all there compared to what quantity exactly? Ever hard of the gazillions of fossil fuels?

They still are there to detect them. The question was whether our fossil records would be detectable.

Or a second industrial civilization would use it to power their cars...

Perhaps there could follow a movement to undo all prior impacts out of an ethical motivation.

And retroactively apply that technology to all the previous garbage they produced and their predecessors produced too?

Sounds like they invented the magic wand.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com