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Scientists make breakthrough discovery with the power to permanently change plastic pollution: 'Transforming ... pollutants into valuable, reusable chemicals'

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/scientists-breakthrough-discovery-power-permanently-133000212.html

"This discovery has significant implications for addressing environmental challenges."

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These stories have been rolling out my entire life and we still have nothing but a sea of plastics polluting the word. I call bullshit.

adespoton

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I think they just left out “…in the lab.”

The research is great, the article is horrible in many ways; it was obviously written by someone who didn’t understand what they were writing about.

Even leading with a high power laser array image when the article is about heating plastic with a low power non-visible radiation….

leisesprecher

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It's always "in mice" or on an extremely small scale for ridiculous prices.

Scientists only develop the first stepping stones, most of which lead to nothing, that's okay. But the university PR > newspaper pipeline leads to everything being a major breakthrough, and that leads to fatigue with the reader.

BallsandBayonets

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The biggest hurdle with getting widespread adoption of any scientific breakthrough is cost. If something is not more profitable than the current way of doing things it will not be adopted. Destroying our planet is pretty damn profitable, so until we exterminate capitalism I don't see anything changing.

Bosht

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How about just find a way to properly dispose of it and move on to something better / more reusable? Plastics are bad on several levels, the most horrifying in recent memory being micro plastics literally invading every part of our bodies.

ColeSloth

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Some stuff can't really be made very well without plastic. It can vastly be cut down, for certain. But it isn't yet realistic to eliminate yet. We need replacement materials and ways to eliminate what is already here.

Bosht

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Right. But we need to at least hold companies accountable and get them moving in the right direction. Currently they don't give a shit. Single use plastics are ridiculous right now, at least in the US. Unnecessary and can easily be replaced or simply not used.

ColeSloth

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We live in an oligarchy. As long as plastic is cheaper and gets sales, it will keep being used unless a law bans it. I lived in a time when soda was canned or in glass bottles. The stuff tasted better bottled in glass. Plastic was lighter and cheaper, so it got switched.

leisesprecher

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There is a pretty good way: burn it.

Most plastics can't be recycled in any meaningful way, so just burn it and use the energy. There are some legitimate uses for plastics, but most of it is wasted.

And always remember: most of the plastic in the ocean is fishing gear, not household waste.

ImmortanStalin

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Let's commodify pollutants like some sort of Villain of the week on Captain Planet.

linearchaos

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I've been kind of hoping with just use renewables to do pyrolysis on waste plastic and turn it back into oil. It's extremely power hungry to do it but we've got power to spare.

KyuubiNoKitsune

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Plasma gasification can self sustain and generate power

linearchaos

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With the pyrolysis or the other couple of methods they worked out it actually turns it back into a raw material that can be reused to make new plastic. It's not as cheap as the methods where they just kind of heated up and melt it back together to become lawn furniture, but it leads to a quality plastic replacement product

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360128522000302

leisesprecher

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But why?

There's absolutely no benefit compared to just burning it and using plant based materials as a resource.