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Comment by Ekaros | Hacker News Reader

Nature does not have above normal temperature. And I think article talk about the also degrading when just tossed to nature...

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But if it's possible to degrade it i solar-powered furnaces without any hazardous/toxic byproducts, it's already worth it. Or if microorganisms could decompose the buried stuff. Also composting is an exothermic reaction, generating heat up to 60C, which is above normal temperature anyway. The question is how waterproof it is, can it get wet or store liquids.

>But if it's possible to degrade it i solar-powered furnaces without any hazardous/toxic byproducts, it's already worth it.

Bottles don't carry themselves to solar-powered furnaces. If we assume that they did (and plastic oceans in the pacific demonstrate otherwise), then we could target the much-easier problem of making plastics that are stable when dumped in a landfill.

I suppose the perfect bottle plastic would biodegrade under natural conditions after 5 years or so, but also biodegrade rapidly under enhanced conditions (e.g high temp, fungi).

That way the lifespan of the contents wouldn't be limited by the bottle - minimising food waste - but we'd retain the ability to get rid of the bottle safely without huge landfills.

So if I leave a bottle of water in summer inside a car, then will I be drinking plastic juice?

You already kinda do if you're drinking bottles of water left in the car for a long time, time+sun/heat/motion is how microplastics are made.

> Nature does not have above normal temperature

Depends on how much you dig I guess?

Some biologial processes can create impressive amount of heat. Haystacks can catch fire just from the internal heating.

> Nature does not have above normal temperature

I wish.

Nature doesn't have a normal temperature. Some places hit 40 C regularly, others never go that high.

The highest recorded air temperature is 56.7°C, while the lowest is 89.2°C. That's a 145.9°C wide range.

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