Meet the researchers designing the death of plastic

[SoCalDem]

https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/researchers-holy-grail-of-plastic-that-self-destructs-within-minutes-20180810-p4zwpx.html

By Xiaozhi Lim
10 August 2018 — 1:06pm


Urbana, Illinois: Adam Feinberg had no sooner made a bright yellow thin sheet of plastic than he had to shred it into little pieces. He chose an "I"-shaped mould. Then, he filled it with the plastic bits and stuck it in a hot oven.

"I opened up the mold and there was this beautiful yellow 'I,'" he recalled. His new plastic passed the first test — it was moldable with heat like regular plastic. But there was another important step left in rethinking the world of durable plastics.

Feinberg placed the "I" under a white light, and five minutes later, only half of it remained. The other half had fallen on the ground. Pieced back together, the "I" had a hole in the middle and in its place was yellow goo.

The plastic did not simply melt. Its building blocks, the synthetic polymers within, had reverted to their molecular units. "It was a phenomenal feeling," he said of the successful experiment.

snip (very inspiring article)

[MontanaMama]

1. Big Kick!

[tblue37]

2. K&R for visibility. nt

[malaise]

3. K & R

This must be seen

[lordsummerisle]

4. k&r n/t

[Squinch]

5. Godspeed to this guy. I've gone back to paper bags for kitchen garbage in my effort to stop

using plastic. It's kind of a pain!

[SoCalDem]

6. I use canvas bags & LOVE them..

they have shoulder straps & and are super easy to load & carry..

[Squinch]

8. I've got a net bag for groceries, but the garbage is difficult.

The net bag is great, though. It scrunched up to take almost no room in a purse, but it holds as many groceries as 3 plastic bags. I do carry one plastic bag (which I, too, clean and reuse) in case I buy fish or drippy meat.

For the garbage, I live in an apartment, so I can't do the composting thing. And the paper bags we get are a little skimpy. Lots of spills if I'm not careful.

[csziggy]

7. I use paper bags for kitchen garbage

And so long as they hold up, I empty them into the larger garbage container and re-use the paper bags as many times as possible. I have different bins for trash, paper, recyclables the county takes, and recyclables (foam and plastic) the stores take. Organics go into a container on the counter and out in the field for the varmints to munch on. This means the paper bags stay dry and clean so they can last a long time.

The few plastic shopping bags I bring home are used to line the little bins in the bathrooms and under my sewing machine - same deal though, I seldom replace the bags, just empty the contents out.

For most shopping I have reusable canvas bags - some are so old I'd had to resew the seams but the fabric still holds up so it's worth the effort. Sometimes I have to request paper bags to have new ones for our garbage cans!