This is why I'm constantly asking: why aren't we planting vineyards in the Wasatch Front? Silicon Slopes didn't work out but can we at least farm some effing grapes?
The headline is practically a demonic summoning ritual for the naturalistic fallacy. The article is talking about cellulose. We've had cellulose forever. Cellulose is dirt cheap. We are a post-cellulose-scarcity civilization. Extracting it from grapevines ought to be mocked as our century's version of bringing coal to Newcastle.
There's a reason we don't use cellulose packaging for everything and it has nothing to do with grapes.
Hint: moisture exists in the world. Biodegrading in 17 days usually means that it breaks down a lot sooner in conditions we care about.
> Funding for this research was provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the National Science Foundation.
What useful research could we have funded instead?
Vitis riparia (wild grapevine endemic to the whole eastern side of North America, grows like a weed all over extremely disease resistant and cold hardy) and hybrids with it also produce gum arabic from their spring pruning wounds: https://agresearchmag.ars.usda.gov/2015/dec/grape/
Combined with the high sugars in the fruit and this cellulose things, overall an extremely useful plant.
That is neat, but not breaking down quickly is why we use it so often and why we find it so useful. We already have and use a ton of cellophane, but stores and producers avoid it in favor of plastic because plastic doesn't meaningfully degrade in the store or warehouse even if climate control conditions are shitty.
I'm skeptical that new materials like this will meaningfully drive down the demand for virgin plastic packaging. The problem is not just the absence of good alternatives; it's the fact that plastic is the fossil fuel industry's backup plan for the global transition to cleaner energy sources.
That is: in preparation for a decrease in global demand for energy from fossil fuels, the industry is ramping up production of plastic to compensate so that it can maintain profitability (instead of, you know, just slowing down the extractive capitalism). Plastic production is set to triple over the next few decades as new facilities are built to support this transition.
I would kill for this for when I’m buying fresh produce at the shops. Right now I just raw dog the produce into my basket as putting 4 apples into a plastic bag to ease the weighing and transport home seems like a selfish thing to do to the environment, but something that starts to break down soon after that sounds great.
This is a novel material with a set of properties and a production "story" that looks rather cool - recycled vines.
If those parameters meet the requirements for a material that you need to use then cool. Use it. I don't see any attributes in this article, which is fine but "stronger than ..." is a bit weak.
The biodegradeable thing is probably going to be key if this stuff can hold hot liquids without poisoning the imbiber or can make plackey bags without falling to bits within seconds.
Great, just what we needed as companies are pushing even more aggressively for planned obsolescence. "Biodegradable" just means "self-destructs automatically so we can keep selling you more".
I already use cellulose based bags for my compost waste, and they only stay reliable for about 3 days of usage after something is put in them. This makes them a huge pain to use. I think they also degrade quite a bit (i.e. shorter lifespan in use) after just a few months because each new roll of bags seems better at the beginning.
What about paper bags? In the UK retailers have to charge for single use plastic bags. Clothes retailers hand out strong paper bags for free, and charge for plastic.
Supermarkets charge for plastic bags. Paper bags for fruit and veg work well. They also provide quality reusable bags that cost a small amount (£1 or so), and people actually reuse them.
If I’m not mistaken this is ecologically basically a paper bag that looks like a plastic bag. Remember when we all switched from paper bags to plastic bags to save the environment? The environmental issue isn’t plastic bags, it’s that you don’t reuse them.
Right. Plastic bags could be re-used, even after getting damp and because they wouldn't rip. So industry switched to them to be more environmentally friendly, and then after a while, no one actually re-used the bags, making them perhaps better in theory but ultimately worse in practice. I don't have the life experience you have but ChatGPT tells me this was a major reason.
As an owner of 30 trees, mainly oak trees, why the heck don't we do this with leaves...? I throw away 3 bins FULL of leaves every week and I can't even keep up. They drop leaves year round.
Why is it that we read about so many inventions like this - once - and then never hear of them again?
Most countries have to import plastic along with their oil. Surely the economics of this gets worse every time oil or shipping prices rise. And more so if you account the cost of waste disposal.
There are economic incentives to scaling up these biodegradable alternatives. Are they not big enough to result in a push?
I’ve worked for two refining companies. They aren’t about to rebuild their global infrastructure to make this happen…it doesn’t matter what possible, it’s what corporations can buy out politicians and the rich building a society that benefits them.
When you start to look at a lot of technological solutions to problems like environmental pollution, climate change, low-cost energy, healthy food production and distribution, you realize that most of the challenges are not technological in nature, but social and political -- basically human nature (fear and greed).
(This is another reason why the idea that's been floated that "AI" or the near-mythical "AGI" will "solve the world's problems" is fallacy -- unless of course by "solve" it means "make a few companies extremely wealthy at the expense of everyone else".)
The 20 year old me would have been so excited about something like this. The 39-year old (ok 40 next month) is more reserved. It is not that I don't think this will be adapted but more like : What needs to happen (government, civic groups whatever economic forces) for companies to adapt this? It's going to be a slow burn for sure if this needs to work at a global scale but the impetus should begin with incentives, sadly.
you've realized that the problems are not impossible, and it's just a matter of getting people to think about them in the right way.
that's easy. Humans have been getting other humans to think the ways they want since the written word. Nothing is more practiced as a discipline, except perhaps prostitution.
The UK banned single use plastic bags at major supermarkets. We all moaned about it for a few minutes, forgot our reusable bags a couple of times and then got on with it. Even the small plastic bags you put fruit or pastries in are now gone in a few super markets - initially, they replaced them with transparent paper-based windowed bags, but then I think people realised you really don't need to see inside the bag, and brown paper bags are back.
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[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 63.8 ms ] threadThe headline is practically a demonic summoning ritual for the naturalistic fallacy. The article is talking about cellulose. We've had cellulose forever. Cellulose is dirt cheap. We are a post-cellulose-scarcity civilization. Extracting it from grapevines ought to be mocked as our century's version of bringing coal to Newcastle.
There's a reason we don't use cellulose packaging for everything and it has nothing to do with grapes.
Hint: moisture exists in the world. Biodegrading in 17 days usually means that it breaks down a lot sooner in conditions we care about.
> Funding for this research was provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the National Science Foundation.
What useful research could we have funded instead?
Combined with the high sugars in the fruit and this cellulose things, overall an extremely useful plant.
Are your Twinkies stuck in a hot truck in Texas for a week? No problem!
That is: in preparation for a decrease in global demand for energy from fossil fuels, the industry is ramping up production of plastic to compensate so that it can maintain profitability (instead of, you know, just slowing down the extractive capitalism). Plastic production is set to triple over the next few decades as new facilities are built to support this transition.
(Source: Paraphrasing from my vague recollection of A Poison Like No Other by Matt Simon, and also articles like this one https://www.ecowatch.com/plastic-production-pollution-foreca...)
https://a.co/d/4luSE9Q
If those parameters meet the requirements for a material that you need to use then cool. Use it. I don't see any attributes in this article, which is fine but "stronger than ..." is a bit weak.
The biodegradeable thing is probably going to be key if this stuff can hold hot liquids without poisoning the imbiber or can make plackey bags without falling to bits within seconds.
Supermarkets charge for plastic bags. Paper bags for fruit and veg work well. They also provide quality reusable bags that cost a small amount (£1 or so), and people actually reuse them.
Most countries have to import plastic along with their oil. Surely the economics of this gets worse every time oil or shipping prices rise. And more so if you account the cost of waste disposal.
There are economic incentives to scaling up these biodegradable alternatives. Are they not big enough to result in a push?
(This is another reason why the idea that's been floated that "AI" or the near-mythical "AGI" will "solve the world's problems" is fallacy -- unless of course by "solve" it means "make a few companies extremely wealthy at the expense of everyone else".)
you've realized that the problems are not impossible, and it's just a matter of getting people to think about them in the right way.
that's easy. Humans have been getting other humans to think the ways they want since the written word. Nothing is more practiced as a discipline, except perhaps prostitution.