A new durable, biodegradable plastic breaks down in seawater, offering a potential solution to microplastic pollution. This material, based on supramolecular structures, can be tailored for different uses and is fully recyclable, enhancing its environmental benefits. New Sustainable Plastic Res
This is a news bulletin from RIKEN, a research center funded by the government of Japan.
This isn’t a story “pushed by the plastic industry”. The problem, I think, is that communication of scientific lab results is often overpraised (“It’s possible to do X!”).
It’s not wrong, but it also does not mean it’s always a good idea to do X, in the way it had been achieved in the paper.
Sadly, loud press releases does benefit funding. So it’ll continue to the detriment of your fatigue, and general distrust in r&d.
I have seen endless reports like this from every news source, labs, you name it. The reality is plastics have to be banned. Period. Only then can any of this work pay off.
I’ve seen the same. We share this observation.
Let’s phone the principal’s office and get plastics banned.
California finally did it for plastic bags other states have done it as well. Nationwide plastic bags and single use bottles need to be banned.
Yeah fine by me. We’ve had that for a decade now where I live.
Has had no measureable impact on ocean plastics.
Plastics aren’t just shopping bags. Plastics are used in clothing, machinery, solid state electronics, literally everywhere. You can’t just ban a material that’s been essential to the world economy for the past century, you have to replace it with something