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Comment by speedylight | Hacker News Reader

We need a new class of materials that have plastic like properties but don’t take thousands of years to degrade or are impossible to recycle.

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I think that degradation of plastic is the larger concern. Storage of garbage is generally an overstated concern, while microplastic pollution clearly show the threat of plastics that break into millions of tiny pieces.[1] Stable plastics that last pose so many fewer problems when it comes to pollutants.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041202...

We need it to break down properly, or not at all.

Only inorganic materials will last forever. We can reuse metal and glass and ceramic forever but never a plastic.

It would be incredible if they could make plastic that didn't break down. But given the history of plastics, I would have to be very convinced that whatever they do to it isn't making it terribly toxic in ways that we don't measure. I would rather ditch plastics for better materials than have to check that yet another new acronym isn't in my water bottle.

It's keeping it out of the air and water that we need to work on. If we properly trashed our plastic, it would not be floating in the ocean.

Eh, I think we just overshot our goals by 100x. We could settle on a plastic that degrades into harmless dust after 10 years, but no less (nor anymore than 100). That's good enough to keep going with all of it.

Do any plastics like that exist?

Almost. There is active research on it. https://www.army.mil/article/245448/army_funded_research_yie...

But then your bottles would fall apart on the shelf because they degraded enough to get a hole in them.

Surely there's a gap that could be the sweet spot between "thousands of years" and a couple of years

The problem is any idiot can make a bottle that lasts thousands of years. It takes an engineer to make a bottle that barely lasts a year.

A milk carton?

Most tetra pak like materials and even aluminum cans are actually lined with plastic. Plastic is the greatest material ever, right until it needs to be disposed and then suddenly the biggest upside becomes the biggest downside.

Unfortunately, I think it's that either there's a microorganism that will eat your material, and you get a couple of years, or there's not, and you get thousands.

Wood, cardboards, and papers. Unfortunately, they are not as easily shaped and more expensive to make. Figure out how you can mass produce an iPhone, including all the PCBs, out of wood and paper and you will become a billionaire.

Not really, no. For packaging type materials, either something will oxidize and is also water soluble, or it doesn’t oxidize and isn’t water soluble. Not much room in the middle. Making any paper based product last longer takes.. plastic.

Oh well, at least the planet and its inhabitants would likely be better off.

Sure, but talk to anyone about paper straws and you will probably see the issue with this.

I'll take slightly annoying plastic straw over millions of particles of plastic poisoning me, any day of the week.

What, that we're collectively unable to deal with relatively minor and innocuous inconveniences for the sake of the planet (setting aside whether or not straws are actually a huge deal)?

That in spite of all the progress humans have made, we're somehow unable just take the lid off and drink out of a cup without pitching a fit?

Apparently, yes :(

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