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Scientists Find Plastic-Eating Fungus Feasting on Great Pacific Garbage Patch (futurism.com)

submitted 5 months ago by schizoidman@lemmy.ml to c/science@lemmy.world

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/16488358

Scientists Find Plastic-Eating Fungus Feasting on Great Pacific Garbage Patch

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[-] mister_monster@monero.town 26 points 5 months ago

There's a lot of discussion in here about how great this is. And it is. But it is at odds with another environmentalist concern.

What if we could take carbon dioxide and turn it into something that can't be degraded by living organisms? Well, plastic is one of those things, or was. Plastic is a form of carbon sequestration.

These micro organisms, they're turning plastic into carbon dioxide. Any and all carbon compounds on earth will enter the carbon cycle. every drop of oil pulled out of the ground, even the stuff that's used to make plastic, will wind up in the atmosphere.

[-] WolfLink@lemmy.ml 11 points 5 months ago

Conveniently, nature has provided us with another carbon sequestration method that has a lot of other benefits, ranging from being a good building material, to helping regulate the local temperature: trees.