this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2025
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That is a terrible analogy. There are already bacteria and fungi out there that show signs of breaking down plastics but at a very slow rate btw. It could function only under very specific conditions, like UV light exposure or sea water. I'd like to know how else you would remove plastics from the wild.
I wouldn't consider UV light to be specific. Sunlight has huge amounts of UV and sunlight is, well nearly everywhere. Sea water would also be a bad catalyst to choose. Lots of parts of boats and ships that come in contact with sea water (through the bilge or as sea spray) intentionally use plastic as it doesn't rust or corrode in the presence of marine environments. What you're suggesting would remove that protection.
Sure, but we're not talking about those. You're suggesting releasing a bacteria that is being designed for industrial scale and use of rapid plastic decomposition. You don't see a difference there?
I'm not required to provide a solution just to point out the catastrophic shortcomings of a proposed one.