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posted by takyon on Tuesday July 09 2019, @03:20AM   Printer-friendly
from the who-sells-sea-shells dept.

Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956

How seafood shells could help solve the plastic waste problem

Crustaceans' hardy shells contain chitin, a material that, along with its derivative chitosan, offers many of plastic's desirable properties and takes only weeks or months to biodegrade, rather than centuries.

The challenge is getting enough pure chitin and chitosan from the shells to make bio-based "plastic" in cost-effective ways. "There's no blueprint or operating manual for what we're doing," says John Keyes, CEO of Mari Signum, a start-up company based just outside of Richmond, Va., that is devising ways to make environmentally friendly chitin. But a flurry of advances in green chemistry is providing some guideposts.

[...] Entrepreneurs are trying to launch new chitin products. Cruz Foam, a company in Santa Cruz, Calif., set out to produce surfboards from chitin, though the company has since pivoted to focus on the much larger market of packaging foam. Polystyrene foam, a common component in both surfboards and food packaging, takes a minimum of 500 years to biodegrade. Company cofounder Marco Rolandi is convinced that his Cruz Foam will biodegrade readily, based on his at-home test. "I put Cruz Foam in my backyard compost and a month later there were worms growing on it," he says. Eco-friendly surfboards and wound dressings are valuable, but they are niche products — small potatoes that won't make a dent in the massive amounts of fossil fuel–based plastics. Scientists have proposed large-scale production of chitin or chitosan in the past. But the chemistry for isolating the materials from shell waste has some big drawbacks, so the work didn't get far.

[...] Approaches that reduce or eliminate corrosive reagents, recycle water and keep the polymers strong are in demand, says Pierre-Olivier Morisset of Merinov, a research center in Gaspé, Canada, that helps marine-product companies manage waste and commercialize innovations. "We're looking for technologies that can produce hundreds of kilograms" of chitin or chitosan with long polymer chains, Morisset says.

Advances in Functional Chitin Materials: A Review (DOI: 10.1021/acssuschemeng.8b06372) (DX)


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  • (Score: 2) by EJ on Tuesday July 09 2019, @03:31AM (10 children)

    by EJ (2452) on Tuesday July 09 2019, @03:31AM (#864846)

    Ways to fix the plastics problem:

    1. Replace all single-use plastic beverage containers with resealable aluminum bottles like Bud Light has. (Aluminum is about the only thing you toss in the recycle bin productively.)
    2. Replace all single-use plastic utensils, straws, etc. with biodegradable materials such as corn, this new material, etc. By the time they start to biodegrade, their useful life is already over.
    3. Find a way to make long-term storage products in such a way that they can be easily broken down if they need to be.

    I'm not sure how we could replace things like bottles for bleach, detergent, and other chemicals with biodegradable products, but if we get rid of things like soda bottles, plastic chip wrappers, etc. then maybe the remaining things that still use classical plastic could be managed properly in a recyclable fashion.

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  • (Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday July 09 2019, @03:49AM (7 children)

    by krishnoid (1156) on Tuesday July 09 2019, @03:49AM (#864849)

    2. Replace all single-use plastic utensils, straws, etc. with biodegradable materials such as corn, this new material, etc. By the time they start to biodegrade, their useful life is already over.

    How about ... aluminum?

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by lentilla on Tuesday July 09 2019, @07:19AM (3 children)

      by lentilla (1770) on Tuesday July 09 2019, @07:19AM (#864892)
      My understanding is that even recycling aluminium uses vast amounts of energy.
      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by EJ on Tuesday July 09 2019, @07:35AM (2 children)

        by EJ (2452) on Tuesday July 09 2019, @07:35AM (#864895)

        Recycling aluminum takes MUCH less energy than harvesting it from the Earth. All you need to do is melt it down and reforge it into something else.

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by lentilla on Tuesday July 09 2019, @04:15PM (1 child)

          by lentilla (1770) on Tuesday July 09 2019, @04:15PM (#865030)

          Yes - that recycling aluminium uses far less energy than initial extraction is a well known fact. That wasn't the point.

          The real question is: if making one thousand straws from plastic takes one thousand units of energy, how much energy does making one thousand straws from recycled aluminium take?

          All you need to do [...]

          Seriously? Whenever I catch myself using that phrase I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck tingling. "All you need to do... to make a million bucks... or develop cold fusion... or travel faster than light... is... what exactly?

          • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @08:22AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @08:22AM (#865314)
            My guess is plastic would still win over metal even if you include the energy to create the plastic from solar energy _today_ rather than use plastic from the petroleum "aquifers" accumulated from years ago (that aren't getting replenished as fast as we're pumping from them).
    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by EJ on Tuesday July 09 2019, @07:31AM (2 children)

      by EJ (2452) on Tuesday July 09 2019, @07:31AM (#864893)

      Aluminum is not biodegradable. People want to throw certain things in the trash. The goal is to not try to change people, but to change the trash. It is much easier to change the trash than to change people's behavior.

      When I say "biodegradable" I'm talking about quickly, not over decades. The idea is that the utensils should hold up for as long as they are properly stored, but then be compostable after they're used.

      Ziploc bags have a very useful function, but they need to have a way to be cleanly broken down and remade. A Ziploc bag wouldn't be very useful if it decomposed after a few days in your fridge, though.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 09 2019, @07:45AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 09 2019, @07:45AM (#864897)

        Make it aluminum and people will take care of the trash for you: http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/how-homeless-recyclers-make-living-redeeming-recyclables/ [pbs.org]

      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 09 2019, @09:05AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 09 2019, @09:05AM (#864907)

        > Ziploc bags ...

        We reuse most ziploc bags several times by rinsing and tossing in the drying rack. Very quick to clean them out as long as they aren't greasy (bags used for meat storage go in the trash). The reused bags often held veges that were cut and partially used (half a green pepper, etc). Also, reused ziplocs are usually good for non-food storage--we never use a new bag for organizing things like the rubber bands that collect in the kitchen.

        Similar for Saran (clear plastic stretch/cling wrap)--if a larger piece was used to cover a bowl of leftovers and didn't get greasy, it gets a quick rinse and is good for several re-uses.

        And, beyond that, most microwavable leftovers go into glass (with heavy plastic lids for the fridge).

        I know that these small measures are a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of plastic in the waste stream (and the ocean), but it's easy to do a little bit like this.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 09 2019, @05:50AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 09 2019, @05:50AM (#864872)

    as anyone can confirm via trivial search for " biodegradation". All this brouhaha is another primitive scam.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 09 2019, @05:52AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 09 2019, @05:52AM (#864875)

    and find instant enlightenment
    .