Plastic seals food, sterile medical implements, medicine, beverages, etc… it’s seems like plastic is used as a way to seal things safely. Post pandemic rising, I see even more. My work used to be have plastic utensils in the cafeteria, for example, an already wasteful thing. Now, post-2020, every fork, knife, and spoon is individually wrapped in a plastic wrapper. I feel like the more my desire to escape plastic intensifies, the more plastic I see all around me everywhere.

How can we get away from plastic as a safety layer?

    • Octospider@lemmy.one
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      11 months ago

      … We’ve known of various organisms that consume plastic for over a decade. Nothing has come from it.

      • aelwero@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        On Google. PETase if you want the nerdy stuff, or “plastic eating enzyme” if you want news articles.

        • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          My point was that, while it exists, it doesn’t exist.

          It can’t be released widespread into the wild to eat microplastics because it would severely damaged infrastructure. So while it’s a neat toy in the lab, and might make it’s way into waste disposal processes, it doesn’t exist where we need it to exist. And it can’t. So it’s not a solution.

      • Mango@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        How do you suppose that’s an opposite, and why are you stalking my posts?

        • Call me Lenny/Leni@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          One dismisses the supposed importance of plastics, the other dismisses the importance of needing to remove them.

          If I seem stalk-ish, it’s only due to how engaged in this place I am. No harm my friend (or at least I don’t think so).