We’ve all heard the plastic bag horror stories—the billions of bags discarded every year that wind up polluting oceans, killing wildlife and getting dumped in landfills where they take up to 1,000 years to decompose. Researchers have been wracking their brains for years to figure out a solution. But leave it to a Canadian high school student to leave them all in the dust. Daniel Burd, an 11th grader at Waterloo Collegiate Institute, has discovered a way to make plastic bags degrade in as little as three months—a finding that won him first prize at the Canada-Wide Science Fair, a $20,000 scholarship, and a chance to revolutionize a major environmental issue.
Spoiler!
Burd’s strategy was simple: Since plastic does eventually degrade, it must be eaten by microorganisms. If those microorganisms, as well as the optimal conditions for their growth, could be identified, we could put them to work eating the plastic much faster than under normal conditions.
With this goal in mind, he ground plastic bags into a powder and concocted a solution of household chemicals, yeast and tap water to encourage microbe growth. Then he added the plastic powder and let the microbes work their magic for three months. Finally, he tested the resulting bacterial culture on plastic bags, exposing one plastic sample to dead bacteria as a control.
Sure enough, the plastic exposed to the live bacteria was 17 percent lighter than the control after six weeks. Once Burd examined the most effective strains of bacteria, he was able to isolate two types—Sphingomonas and Pseudomonas—as the plastic munchers. At 37 degrees and optimal bacterial concentration, the microbes had consumed 43 percent of a plastic sample within six weeks.
Next up, maybe it’s time to put him to work on this whole carbon emissions thing.
*BlackFox wrote:Just stop manufacturing plastic bag, that would solve the problem No science involved!.. lulz
yeah and stop using plastic soda bottles and plastic shampoo bottles and and plastic combs. lets just use wood again...
Why are your posts usually full of ignorance? It's foolish to think that what you post is clever and/or insightful. It doesn't take a genius to understand how we should minimize our waste. But now, you come and post something that can only make me appreciate being open minded.
*BlackFox wrote:Just stop manufacturing plastic bag, that would solve the problem No science involved!.. lulz
yeah and stop using plastic soda bottles and plastic shampoo bottles and and plastic combs. lets just use wood again...
Why are your posts usually full of ignorance? It's foolish to think that what you post is clever and/or insightful. It doesn't take a genius to understand how we should minimize our waste. But now, you come and post something that can only make me appreciate being open minded.
*BlackFox wrote:Just stop manufacturing plastic bag, that would solve the problem No science involved!.. lulz
yeah and stop using plastic soda bottles and plastic shampoo bottles and and plastic combs. lets just use wood again...
Why are your posts usually full of ignorance? It's foolish to think that what you post is clever and/or insightful. It doesn't take a genius to understand how we should minimize our waste. But now, you come and post something that can only make me appreciate being open minded.
What? I don't get it. Nothing seems wrong with CeLL's post.
*BlackFox wrote:Just stop manufacturing plastic bag, that would solve the problem No science involved!.. lulz
yeah and stop using plastic soda bottles and plastic shampoo bottles and and plastic combs. lets just use wood again...
Why are your posts usually full of ignorance? It's foolish to think that what you post is clever and/or insightful. It doesn't take a genius to understand how we should minimize our waste. But now, you come and post something that can only make me appreciate being open minded.
CeLL's right, we are too dependent on platic, if it was as simple as rumple said it would've been done by now.
actually, using wood is a good idea. It will force people to plant more trees to supply the demands, thus enforce a green environment and provide clean air. But big tree took ages to grow and human is impatience so that's not gonna happen. The speed of cutting trees nowadays is bigger than the speed a tree is fully growth which lead to deforestation so one day the planet will care about growing trees.
Some poor country in Asia is currently using wood/paper as bag
NuclearSilo wrote:actually, using wood is a good idea. It will force people to plant more trees to supply the demands, thus enforce a green environment and provide clean air. But big tree took ages to grow and human is impatience so that's not gonna happen. The speed of cutting trees nowadays is bigger than the speed a tree is fully growth which lead to deforestation so one day the planet will care about growing trees.
Some poor country in Asia is currently using wood/paper as bag
Paper as a bag yes. Wood to replace much of the plastic we use? Not a chance.
NuclearSilo wrote:actually, using wood is a good idea. It will force people to plant more trees to supply the demands, thus enforce a green environment and provide clean air. But big tree took ages to grow and human is impatience so that's not gonna happen. The speed of cutting trees nowadays is bigger than the speed a tree is fully growth which lead to deforestation so one day the planet will care about growing trees.
Some poor country in Asia is currently using wood/paper as bag
Paper as a bag yes. Wood to replace much of the plastic we use? Not a chance.
brb using my wooden laptop
There is a difference between reducing the production of plastic over totally remove it. If anything can be replaced with wood, then it's ok. Of course we have to smartly choose what object can be replace with wood to no causing fire and degrade the material. It may not look nice but for the sake of environment, wood is better. And yes, human is greedy, evil and selfish, they won't care, if you want to add.
We’ve all heard the plastic bag horror stories—the billions of bags discarded every year that wind up polluting oceans, killing wildlife and getting dumped in landfills where they take up to 1,000 years to decompose. Researchers have been wracking their brains for years to figure out a solution. But leave it to a Canadian high school student to leave them all in the dust. Daniel Burd, an 11th grader at Waterloo Collegiate Institute, has discovered a way to make plastic bags degrade in as little as three months—a finding that won him first prize at the Canada-Wide Science Fair, a $20,000 scholarship, and a chance to revolutionize a major environmental issue.
