Marine scientists discovered an ocean-borne fungus chomping through plastic trash in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
  • KidnappedByKitties@lemm.ee
    57·
    30 days ago

    Sounds like great news, no?

    Just as we had a time before fungus digesting plant matter, we’ve now had a time before fungus digesting plastics.

    “Soon” we’ll get bacteria and insects doing the same, and all our plastic buildings will need to be protected just as the wood ones.

    • 9488fcea02a9@sh.itjust.works
      9·
      29 days ago

      Not really good news for the plastic that isnt waste. Plastic pipes or structures in buildings that were meant to last decades we dont want eaten away by fungus

      • Balder@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        29 days ago

        Still it’s a positive net balance for the planet if it happens this way. But I think the “plastic safety” (in a food sense) would also end?

        • anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          1·
          29 days ago

          Hate to break it to you, but if you store your food for years above freezing and without a protective atmosphere in a plastic container it’s spoiled anyway.

    • mister_monster@monero.townEnglish
      32·
      29 days ago

      Yup. Plastic’s main selling point, it’s durability, is no longer going to be a factor when choosing it as a material.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
    491·
    30 days ago

    “Nature finds a way” – Dr. Ian Malcolm

    The plastic simply was a too nice of an energy source to be left aside by microorganisms. There are microorganisms for basically any energy source the world provides. There are bacteria that live on undersea volcanoes feasting on acids and carbon dioxide, so a fungus eating plastic is no actual surprise.

    • d00phy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      20·
      29 days ago

      Unless you include the “uh” in that quote I can’t hear Jeff Goldblum say it, and that’s a trigger I didn’t know it had. So, thanks?

  • Ben Matthews@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    361·
    29 days ago

    “…at a rate of roughly 0.05 percent per day … would take a very long time” … but by my quick calculation 0.9995^3650 is 84% per decade, which is not long. Almost instantaneous on a geological timescale - and think how much the world changed when fungi learned how to digest lignin in wood - ending the era of coal-forming swamps.

    • Telodzrum@lemmy.worldEnglish
      27·
      29 days ago

      It’s going to be a significantly different number than that. You have to factor in growth rate in a resource-abundant environment as well as reduced access to food sources as more of the patch is consumed. But yeah, you’re right that’s actually a very fast rate of consumption of a non-naturally-renewing food source.

  • mister_monster@monero.townEnglish
    222·
    29 days ago

    There’s a lot of discussion in here about how great this is. And it is. But it is at odds with another environmentalist concern.

    What if we could take carbon dioxide and turn it into something that can’t be degraded by living organisms? Well, plastic is one of those things, or was. Plastic is a form of carbon sequestration.

    These micro organisms, they’re turning plastic into carbon dioxide. Any and all carbon compounds on earth will enter the carbon cycle. every drop of oil pulled out of the ground, even the stuff that’s used to make plastic, will wind up in the atmosphere.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
      12·
      29 days ago

      Well, sure. And that’s really bad for Ice Age evolved macro-species that require a certain survivable temperature and condition to thrive. But you’re missing the bigger picture. For lots of plants and bacteria and various insecticidal organisms that thrive in hot, humid environments, this is going to be absolutely amazing.

      Yes, humans are absolutely fucked, along with enormous chunks of the mammalian class of species. But life will continue on in exciting new ways.

    • WolfLink@lemmy.ml
      61·
      29 days ago

      Conveniently, nature has provided us with another carbon sequestration method that has a lot of other benefits, ranging from being a good building material, to helping regulate the local temperature: trees.