Summary: In May of 2008 Daniel Burd age 16 won a science fair with his amazing discovery, of a new way to dispose of plasitc. As of now plastic is the most harmful thing to our enviroment. Accoridng to The Clean Air Council all of Americans use up to 1 billion plastic shopping bags per year. Which is equal to 300,000 tons of waste in landfills, when cheekced only about 1,000 plastic bags were recycled. However Daniel Burd's discovery will have major effects on our conseption and desposing on plastic. Burd knew that plastic decomposes it just takes about 1,000 years but he saught a way to make that faster. With this idea in hand he went to work. Burd used fine ground powedered plastic and put this into yeast. This produces microbial growth, then he sealed off the product with the most produtive organisms. In just six weeks he disovered that 43% of the plsatic had been decompsed.
Reflection: This I find to be amazing. How is it that a 16 year old kid figured this out, when we've been dying for a way to keep our plastic around forever. Yet I fear that people might see this as the answer. This could mean the stop to trying to be more eco friendly which I hope doesn't happen. I feel that this process should maybe be used to get ride of the platics in landfills now. Then the things that we can find no other alternative use, I stilll really believe that we should try hard to be eco friendly and cut down plastic conseption.
Questions:
1) How has this effected the community with plastic consuption?
2) Is this being used on a larger scale?
3) Is this being used at all?
4) Are there other wasy to speed up decompation of plastic?
5) Is this way enviromentally friendly?
I think that Daniel Burd discovered something amazing and should be rewarded. Using bacteria to dispose of trash is avery good idea. I do agree with Connor when she says that this isn't a solution to plastics being thrown out. People shouldn't stop trying to find better alternatives to plastics. The bacteria only breaks down 43%, but that still leaves a high amount of plastics in landfills. Daniel's idea should be used, but better alternatives are needed.
ReplyDeleteQuestions:
1.Will this idea work on a larger scale landfill?
2. What happens to the bacteria when it's done eating?
3. How much energy is used by crushing the plastics into edible bits for bacteria?
I think it's very interesting that a kid this age discovered a way to raise the decomposition of plastic. Although this idea may not be perfect, being that it only breaks down 43% of plastics, scientists can work from this discovery and maybe find a better solution. With the technology that we have today, it should't be long before someone else discovers another way to lower waste. But what's most important is trying to convince the people to reduce/reuse/recycle, so we should be focusing on this more than anything else.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of a young girl that discovered a supernova not too long ago. Although these two do not relate very closely, they both involve young kids making scientific discoveries.
Questions:
1. What are the names of these plastic eating bacteria?
2. Is there any disadvantage to using these bacteria on a larger scale?
3. How much longer before we run out of area on our landfills?
4. Why don't we burn the trash and use it as biomass?
Plastic is a big problem in our environment. Many places around the world have problems with plastic in landfills and the five vortexes in the oceans that we learned about today. Plastic is being dumped into our shores. Daniel Burd’s idea is good, but it’s not that effective. Not all plastic can be broken down, and some even take longer than the estimated 1,000 years. This process can help in some way, but in the long term we have other options get rid of plastic quicker. How long would this process take, and could scientists look farther into this to see if we can make it even faster? These are questions we need to ask and consider.
ReplyDeleteAnswer to # 4
There aren’t any other ways that really speed up the brake down of plastic, besides biodegrable forks and utensils that companies have made. Plastic takes 1,000’s of years to decompose and with some plastics never at all.
It is great that we are thinking of new ways to dispose plastic. We use so much of it and it takes so long to disolve so it can take up a lot of space. Right now, it will take ten to elelven generations for a single plastic bag to dissolve. Hopefully, this great idea will make a big difference. I can relate to this because,you might think of something that is small, but it will not work on a larger scale.
ReplyDeleteHow does it work?
Does it make any pollutants?
Can we make it work on a larger scale?