Fun guy chillin’ in South American rainforest finds plastic-eating fungi
Seriously, though this is kind of a big deal. Know that big problem we have? You know, the one involving a crapload of used plastic hanging around in landfills with nowhere to biodegrade for a couple million years? Well, Jonathan Russell might’ve solved that problem. See, Russell and his fellow Yale students went to Ecuador, where they found a new kind of fungus they’re calling Pestalotiopsis microspora. Big deal, you’re thinking. Anyone can find fungus anywhere! Well, something his fellow students found out after the fact is that this fungus can live on a diet of polyurethane alone — and even crazier, it doesn’t even need air to do so! In other words, we could potentially put it at the bottom of a landfill and cover it with plastic, and it would do the rest of the work. This might be game-changing if it works as advertised. (photo via Flickr user dbutt; EDIT: Updated with link to research abstract) source
(Source: shortformblog, via discoverynews)
good:
Grist posted this piece from designer Max Temkin, and we felt it was worth sharing because we’re right in the thick of our waste less 30 Day GOOD Challenge.
Take that, plastic spoons, you jerks.
The people buying the plastic spoons don’t have to do anything but buy it and bring it home. And the effort made by the people who manufacture the plastic spoon costs less than the price of the plastic spoons.
The efforts can’t be compared.
I’ve got to say that if you feel this way about plastic spoons then you should feel this way about everything you purchase. Well, most things at least. Part of me thinks we should try to go back to a very home-made society, but another part of me wants to put a man on Mars or cure horrible diseases. I like Max Temkin, but a lot of his stuff seems to have oddball logic. It makes sense, but then if used in every situation the world would fall backwards 1500 years or would advance in a very vanilla ice cream sort of way.
