Bacteria Eat Styrofoam

chaosmage42 writes "Scientists at the University of Dublin have found a way to break down styrofoam, the bane of recyclers/composters everywhere. This could be a great step towards sustainability, but it does require the styrofoam to be heated first."

I hope it takes *something*

[Chris Burke]

This could be a great step towards sustainability, but it does require the styrofoam to be heated first.

I hope so. It would be rather bad if there was a bacteria that could feed on styrofoam that hadn't been altered in some way. Order some electronics online, and they arrive in a box dripping with whatever organic waste products these bacteria leave behind... Yeah, I'm glad.

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

The process will be detailed in the April 1 issue of the American Chemical Society journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Re:I've seen this in action.

[Slashdot Junky]

That's awesome! You've got a wife that doesn't make you throw stuff like that out!

Later,
-Slashdot Junky

Re:Cancer anyone?

[reverseengineer]

The "pretty nasty gasses" are pretty much what the the bacteria are dining on. In this process, polystyrene is depolymerized back to styrene. Styrene is benzene with a vinyl group attached, and like most benzene derivatives, is generally bad for health, especially under prolonged exposure. The Material Safety Data Sheet [ox.ac.uk] for styrene notes in the toxicology section: Toxic. Carcinogen. Mutagen. Corrosive, causes burns to skin and eyes. Lachrymator. Harmful by inhalation, ingestion and through skin absorption. Long term exposure may affect CNS.

Now, styrene isn't especially toxic- the quoted toxicity data applies almost word for word for many organic liquids- gasoline (petrol), for instance. This process of breaking down polystyrene foam isn't exactly something you can safely do at home. Then again, you probably don't recycle polyethylene or aluminum at your residence either. There are safety and economies of scale issues with recycling those as well. However, it may find application on an industrial waste management scale. Done under controlled conditions, this process should certainly be no more hazardous than any other industrial process- and less hazardous than something like petroleum refining.

Re:This actually scares me

[Anomalous Coward]

What happens to modern society when bacteria, fungus, and other assorted critters evolve the ability to break down plastics?

Probably something similar to what would happen if bacteria, mold, insects, et. al. suddenly started being able to eat wood!! Look around at all the things that are made of wood or use wood in their construction. Civilization would surely fall if that were to ever happen. Maybe if we're really lucky it will never happen. Or maybe, just maybe, we'd learn to deal with it.

Re:This actually scares me

[dubl-u]

Imagine if your laptop computer started growing mold like an old loaf of bread. Now take a look around your house, office, or wherever and imagine if every single plastic item in existence did. Maybe it won't ever happen -- I certainly hope not -- but this is a worrying first step. Are we too confident in the permanence of our plastic items?

Given that wood, cloth, and leather are already biodegradable, I'm not so worried.

Re:I've seen this in action.

[kesuki]

Well I'd just like to point out a few points 1. Everything is either biodegradable, or erodable. 'non biodegradable plastic' is a con, it's plastic that takes Decades of exposure to sunlight, hot and cold temperatures to erode/degrade away. the thing is, landfills have NONE of that, they have one nice constant temperature, one nice constant level of humidity, and no sunlight of anykind. Plastatcs that can 'degrade' under the conditions found in a landfill can be made, mainly by examining the prevlent soil bacteria, and making the polymers an 'ideal' treat for said soil bacteria. normal houshold goods like 'apple cores' are non 'biodegradable' in that, once burried they become 'petrafied' and fosilized. (after enough time has passed)

so really, 'biodegradable' is just a catch phrase, anything that is esposed to sun wind and rain long enough will break down. although it may not be 'safe' to allow such things to break down that way, as polystryne beads might choke innocent creatures trying to eat them, etc.

however, building nearly self contained ecosystems to break town waste would create more of a problem, than processing them, or simply burying them already does.

Re:I've seen this in action.

[BeanThere]

Not a very good analogy. Even though the polystyrene is only eroded to microparticles, it isn't actually poisonous.

True, but the point of the GP post wasn't that the polystyrene wasn't poisonous, but rather that he thought that it was "gone" simply because he couldn't see it anymore, and for that point the analogy still stands.

The general public's understanding and 'lay' usage of the word "biodegradability" may be a 'red herring', but the actual notion is important in studies of industrial chemicals and so on (e.g. cf http://www.steve.gb.com/me/work.html [gb.com]). Whether something can be eaten by bacteria (and broken down in this way) is actually pretty important, in fact it is one of the primary ways in which dangerous molecules are broken down in the environment into non-dangerous molecules. You make it sound like nobody worries about this sort of thing ever, which isn't true, there are plenty of once-common chemicals that have now been banned because they were toxic and found to persist in the environment (and more in the pipeline e.g. PBDEs) - the very reason we don't have to fear modern landfills so much is precisely because there is now a lot more 'control' over what is used or discarded in manufacturing and so the things we buy these days are a lot more "harmless". This isn't because biodegradability isn't a concern, it's precisely because it has been a very real concern.

As for 100 year old newspapers being readable on a landfill, I'm rather skeptical of that claim, given that having "studied" my own garbage I've found that anything paper rots away within mere weeks. It's practically impossible to stop the stuff from rotting unless it's sealed, and there will always be humidity in the heap because a large portion of stuff on the landfill is 'wet' in nature (e.g. bits of rotting fruit peels) so you can't keep anything paper dry.