A Faint Hope for the future

[Gord_in_Toronto]

As our biosphere and bodies get polluted by micro-plastics a faint hope is offered.

Scientists Say New Device Can Scrub 99.9 Percent of Microplastics From Water

Crafted by researchers out of Canada's University of British Columbia and China's Sichuan University, the "bioCap" purifying filter is comprised of compounds from fruit and wood that are able to eliminate almost all microplastics in water.

Using fruit tannins — the chemicals that make under-ripe fruit taste bad — coated over sawdust, the researchers were able to create a cylindrical water filtration device that eliminates between 95.2 and 99.9 percent of microplastics depending on what they're made of.

We can only hope that this is scalable and the process can be usefully applied.

 

[arthwollipot]

And take all that food away from the microorganisms that are evolving to eat plastic?

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

And take all that food away from the microorganisms that are evolving to eat plastic?

Surely we can share the planet?

I'm trying to remember the SF story where someone created a plastic eating bacterium that caused the collapse of civilization by destroying all the insulation on electric wires.

 

[Dave Rogers]

Mutant 59: The Plastic Eater, by Kit Pedler. Based, I believe, on an episode of Doomwatch.

Dave

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Mutant 59: The Plastic Eater, by Kit Pedler. Based, I believe, on an episode of Doomwatch.

Dave

Not that one. ISTR it was a bit earlier. Though I may be getting it mixed up with a story in which a scientist invented a virus which killed all poppy plants and thus destroyed the source of heroin. When the government would not believe he did it and pay him, he promptly released a virus that killed all tobacco plants.

 

[Myriad]

It's something of a micro-genre:

Slow Apocalypse by John Varley, 2012: a bacterium that causes underground oil deposits to solidify, and thus become unrecoverable, spreads out of control and causes collapse.

Ill Wind by Kevin J. Anderson & Doug Beason, 1995: a bacterium (bred to clean up oil spills) mutates to consume all hydrocarbon fuels and plastics, then spreads out of control and causes collapse.

"Daybreak Trilogy" starting with Directive 51 by John Barnes, 2010: nanobots created by members of an anti-industrial populist movement spread out of control and destroy hydrocarbons everywhere, causing collapse. This is probably the one you're thinking of, because as far as I know it's the only one where the effect on electrical insulation is specifically highlighted in the plot.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

As our biosphere and bodies get polluted by micro-plastics a faint hope is offered.

Scientists Say New Device Can Scrub 99.9 Percent of Microplastics From Water



We can only hope that this is scalable and the process can be usefully applied.

The usage of the word "filter" makes me wary. Treating municipal drinking water is nice I suppose, but this is not going to do much for the pollution of microplastics going out into nature generally.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

The usage of the word "filter" makes me wary. Treating municipal drinking water is nice I suppose, but this is not going to do much for the pollution of microplastics going out into nature generally.

I visualize huge pumping stations sucking the contaminated waters from the ocean depths purifying the input and putting it back without harming a single fish or other living creature.

Sure -- like that will happen.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

I visualize huge pumping stations sucking the contaminated waters from the ocean depths purifying the input and putting it back without harming a single fish or other living creature.

Sure -- like that will happen.

There's probably still a use case for treating drinking water, but this is no magic bullet for the wider problem of microplastics accumulating in our biosphere.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

There's probably still a use case for treating drinking water, but this is no magic bullet for the wider problem of microplastics accumulating in our biosphere.

Did I forget to add a smilie or two?

 

[ahhell]

And take all that food away from the microorganisms that are evolving to eat plastic?

I chuckled.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

It's something of a micro-genre:

Slow Apocalypse by John Varley, 2012: a bacterium that causes underground oil deposits to solidify, and thus become unrecoverable

One could hope...

I wouldn't expect slowly running out of oil to cause an apocalypse - but it could avert the one we are headed for.

 

[Puppycow]

I visualize huge pumping stations sucking the contaminated waters from the ocean depths purifying the input and putting it back without harming a single fish or other living creature.

Sure -- like that will happen.

A filter that can filter out microplastics would probably also filter out things like plankton that are important in the food chain.