science

Much more likely that no company wants to use it no matter how much it costs because it degrades. We use plastic as a packing material specifically because it doesn't degrade and lasts forever.

https://blueviewfootwear.com/

Same people, they've been making biodegradable footwear for a bit now.

Until get externalities of plastic on to the up front cost. We kind of did it on plastic bags in the UK.

That doesn't sound like a problem but a feature. We love new shiny things and wasting things.

I think if we find materials that breakdown in a useful way, it creates an incentive to make use of those products that have a shelf life. But more importantly creating a waste product that is beneficial.

I didn't know if the material science is there yet. But we need to figure out the best way to use these new materials to change industries.

If we can make something profitable, other people will do the hard part of adopting it and getting it out there.

My work produces sooo much waste. More than all of the staff combined will ever produce. And thats just my branch. We have hundreds of branches and being where we are in canada, we put some of the most amount of effort into recycling. Because its law, not because the company is willing to sacrifice profit by spending resources on anything that doesnt produce value in dollars.

We are small fry, and we arent in a monopoly

I wonder why we shifted away from things like waxed paper milk cartons(like the small ones you'd get in school) and waxed butcher paper?

Is waxed paper/cardboard product really that much more expensive than plastic in terms of packaging?

Ah crap. 😩

Sounds like something laws should fix

Some of those "compostable" bags actually decompose into microplastics, so unfortunately they're not always better

I agree, although, the pessimist in me says the Oil companies will find a way to kill it somehow.

"if oil didn't exist, we'd have to invent it"

They still are.

since at least the 80s

People have been reliant on "ole’ techno-solutions" since the dawn of humanity 2 million years ago on the African savannah, long before capitalism was even a thing. Just sayin'.

Damn right, many techno-solutions already exist and have for a while but don't get used, usually due to bribery by the purveyors of the problem.

No one said its a magic wand, it's one of many things that could potrntislly help reduce the damage we do to the ecosystem.

Yes capitalism bad but there's eight billion people on the planet so a communist system would also need modern materials to allow everyone to live a good life.

However, cost is currently a prohibitive issue to widespread use, the researchers said. While petroleum is readily available to siphon from the ground, widespread infrastructure for algae farming will be needed for plastics made of the bio-based polymer to become used en masse, Burkart said.

However, the process the researchers devised can also be applied to other plant-based material, Burkart said.

The researchers hope their new process can eventually be implemented widely for food packaging, Pomeroy said.

"But if you're going to ask me, 'Could we do this with anything?' I'm pretty sure we could do this with most anything," he said.

Sounds like an economy of scales problem, and the scale isn't there. Fixable, but not great.

No he said that in the video. It's a moot point. We are looking at doing something new. Will it be price competitive once it matures? Thats what we need to be asking.

Because if yes, immediately shift ALL subsidies from petroleum to whatever CAN effectively replace oil-plastic.

Whatever we do, it has to actually be effective regardless of cost. Cost come down as economies of scale sort themselves out.

Plastic is killing us anyway, what cost matters if we are all dead?

This is a problem NOW. Paying for it is a problem LATER.

Depends on the use case.

Reading the article, it doesn't seem like it just disintegraties after 7 months, this material has to be under compositing conditions with a specific microbe due 7 months.

There are applications where this would probably be an unacceptable possibility, but I'd imagine the vast majority of single use plastics would be fine with this. Packaging may spend months or even years doing it's job, but it won't be under compost conditions during that time.

Not really. The reason plastic exploded in use is because it's cheap, durable, lightweight, and really versatile.
Look around you and consider what it would take to manufacture some plastic objects in another material.
Disposable things like packaging would be perfect to decompose after their lifetime is over.

That was the selling point before we got into mass production of disposable plastic everything.