This biotech startup uses methane-eating bacteria to create fully biodegradable polymers.
Mango Materials is a biotech startup from San Francisco that has come up with an ingenious method for transforming methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into plastic. The process involves feeding methane to bacteria, which then produce a biodegradable polymer (polyhydroxyalkanoate, or PHA). This polymer can be spun into polyester fabric and used for clothing, carpets, and possibly packaging, although the company is most focused on the garment industry right now.
The methane used by Mango Materials comes from a waste treatment plant in the Bay Area, but the company is looking at partnering with other sources of methane, such as dairy farms, in order to get more. The technology creates value for methane, which is a novel idea.
How long would it take to fart a sweater — are we talking one burrito, or two?
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday October 07 2017, @10:58AM (13 children)
Your clothes will literally be made out of excrement? Will it smell like shit? Will T-shirts now be short for turd-shirts? What was wrong with wool or cotton again? Personally I would find it somewhat more impressive if they actually stuck to the interesting part, they can turn a waste gas into plastic. Creating value out of Methane? We already do that. It's not like methane was worthless before.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @11:45AM (4 children)
Polyester leisure suits return to fashion. Senior citizens rejoice.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 07 2017, @03:28PM (2 children)
No, no, no! You've got to get the terminology right. It's DOUBLE KNIT polyester that was all the rage. I'll admit, I paid for one. I was young and dumb and full of - - - well, we needn't go there. But, I would never have paid for a plain old polyester suit. Double knit gave it an aura of respectability.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday October 07 2017, @06:47PM
I bought a "cheap suit" after graduation - A) it was all I could afford, B) I had gone suit shopping in Europe, Miami, New York - I had a fair idea of what a good suit looked like, C) I was so thin that finding a suit that fit me was hard - so, when I saw it, in my size, I plunked down the $200 without another thought and I had myself a suit that, from 5' away (2' for old people's eyesight) looked like the finest natural materials in an elegant woven pattern.
I wore that suit to a trade show that I worked with an Italian sales guy, he had a better looking suit made of natural materials probably cost 5-10x what mine did, both were looking sharp and well pressed at the start of the first day. By the end of the first day, after sitting down with clients and at lunch, his coat was a spectacle of wrinkles, looked like he had picked it out of a pile before he put it on - mine looked identical to how it did in the morning. Next morning, he had done some pressing / repair and his coat looked sort-of like he cared acceptable, for a guy on international travel at least, mine looked identical to how it did on the first morning. I think on the 3rd day he gave up on the first coat and switched to a backup he had packed. Mine looked identical to how it did on the first morning - zero maintenance, very practical.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 08 2017, @06:12PM
Was it plaid?
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday October 07 2017, @06:10PM
As does Larry, Larry Laffer.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @12:00PM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 07 2017, @03:32PM (2 children)
Little known fact, in America, at least. Sheep droppings don't stink. There's no sulfur in the droppings, so they don't stink. If you'd like a pet, but worry about the odors, get a sheep. A ram might knock intruders off their feet, but they can't object to smelly droppings!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @09:14PM (1 child)
That's not my experience.
I provided instrumentation support for an medical research lab that used sheep and the place definitely had an unpleasant oder.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 07 2017, @09:19PM
Sheep have a smell, from the lanolin in their wool. Some people find that odor to be unpleasant, some don't. I bet you didn't smell the stench associated with pig manure, or cow manure, or even horse manure. You certainly didn't smell the stench of predatory animals like cats or dogs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @12:41PM
This isn't about the clothing. This is about sequestering methane.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday October 07 2017, @06:38PM (2 children)
The ultimate feedstocks of cotton plants and sheep are more animal excrement and other "recycled" organics. The ciiiiiircle of liiiiiife....
Seriously, why are they bothering running around catching cow farts when they could tap the fuel streams, or even the flarestacks at refineries?
Oh, and to the article's question of how many burritos for a sweater, I think you'll find the number to be in the thousands.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday October 08 2017, @01:58PM (1 child)
So we should get the special, then?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday October 08 2017, @05:27PM
At least - if you think of it, the burrito generates methane by bacterial decomposition of its own components, so even if conversion was 100% efficient, there's hardly enough mass in one burrito to make a sweater, even a special. Now, factor in ruffage, energy extraction by the burrito eater and their gut bacteria, carbon that gets converted to things other than methane, inefficiencies...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @12:01PM (2 children)
(Score: 3, Informative) by fraxinus-tree on Saturday October 07 2017, @12:50PM
Yes, it is. It is also used in industrial scale in various chemical processes, including production of polymers, plastics and fabrics.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @09:38PM
It isn't difficult to find images which demonstrate that, not so long ago, natural gas was considered to be of little value in the petroleum extraction process and just burned off to no advantage. [google.com]
That's changed significantly in recent years.
...and the less stuff we burn (replacing that with renewable energy sources), the longer we can put off a global warming catastrophe with coastal cities/countries under water, resulting in massive monetary losses; Pacific islands under water, resulting in many climate refugees; bigger, more destructive storms; reduced mountain snowpack resulting in less fresh water during the summer; more and longer droughts; reduced crop yields; food production pushed northward, away from traditional farming areas; etc.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @12:14PM (11 children)
Most synthetic fabrics are extremely uncomfortable.
Coincidentally, where do people think cotton comes from? The cotton plant is 'sequestering' carbon out of the air into cotton material! And it does it in an already well optimized, economical process!
We don't need whiz-bang ways of making cloth from air, we need better ways to make fertilizer. But, that is too technical for marketing to sell a bunch of useless crap at an inflated price.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @12:53PM
It does look like there are whiz-bang cotton picking robots on the way. Smaller & much cheaper than large dedicated pickers, will waste less and pick closer to the optimum time. http://growinggeorgia.com/features/2017/08/those-cotton-picking-robots/ [growinggeorgia.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @03:36PM (1 child)
The hemp plant is also very good at sequestering carbon. I like the feel of the few items of clothes I have that are made from hemp somewhat better than cotton, not that cotton isn't bad. Also, the cured skins of other mammals, especially with the insulating hairs intact, make for very excellent outerwear: durable and superb protection from the elements.
Also algae can be used to store energy from the local star in a stable, liquid form, amenable to transportation, that small engines can then extract with combustion, completing the carbon cycle and ensuring that more energy from the local star may be harvested into liquid form by future generations.
What do these idiot humans do? They to reinvent the wheel, poorly. Polyester and stellar+batteries. Talk about NIH syndrome! Then they get all superstitious about fur and refuse to select and domesticate (thus ensuring that species' survival as long as these humans survive) a mammal species with good qualities.
As for TFS, I have a pet peeve. The clothes aren't made from methane, dipshits! There is this process called "chemistry" that may be employed to change one substance into another substance with quite different properties. The planetary goddess has been hard at work for over a billion years figuring this all out for you! You'd know that if you had availed yourself of the educational material provided at the K-12 daycare service you unevolved sacks of shit! /rant at TFS
Would that the neanderthals and denisovans had survived instead of this violent, stupid, greedy species. Alas.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @10:07PM
You didn't mention that the fiber is more durable than any traditional fiber.
...or that hemp grows faster than any other fiber crop.
...or that hemp will grow damned near anywhere.
...and that at one time farmers were encouraged to grow it [google.com] (before the racist anti-drug laws, starting in 1937--where the name of the stuff they were vilifying they didn't even spell properly).
Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 [wikipedia.org]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 07 2017, @03:36PM (3 children)
We might have to disagree about that "optimized, economical process".
Cotton and corn have something in common - both deplete the soil much more than most other crops. On the industrial scale that Americans demand, it is pretty costly, in terms of the environment. Things would be so very much better, if they forgot about cotton, and started using hemp. Hemp is good for the soil, doesn't need much if any fertilizer to get it established, and, the fabric is supposed to be 7 times more durable than cotton.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday October 07 2017, @05:56PM (1 child)
And if your clothes catch fire, at least you'll immediately get a pain killer. ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 07 2017, @09:16PM
Uh-huh. I've touched on that a time or two. Natural fibers will get hot, begin to smolder, and then catch fire, just like paper, or wood, or coal. At any point, even after bursting into flames, a person can peel those natural fibers off, and the heat transfer to your flesh stops. Not so with the synthetics, such as polyester. The fabric feels warm, then hot, and suddenly, the fabric melts into your flesh and there is no peeling it off.
But yeah - pain relievers. Oh-kay, if you say so.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 08 2017, @01:16AM
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday October 07 2017, @04:04PM (1 child)
"Coincidentally, where do people think cotton comes from?"
The sweat from black slave labour, of course!
*ducks*
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 08 2017, @09:01AM
Not any more, now it's robot labor (see previous comment).
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday October 07 2017, @06:40PM (1 child)
There's not much optimized or efficient about the cotton growing and spinning process - it works, it's popular, but it's far from the most efficient path between raw feedstocks and woven fiber products.
Now, people like the way their cotton clothes feel (probably more due to familiarity than anything else), so it will be hard to duplicate that experience without using acres of cotton plants, harvesting machinery, etc.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @10:14PM
The thing I like about cotton is the folks who have bred strains that already have a color and don't need to be dyed.
That's pretty cool.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @06:24PM
3D fart printer!!
(Score: 1) by jman on Sunday October 08 2017, @01:17PM
Dungamoos
Flatupants
Squeaker Sneakers
The SBD LBD
Beano Blazers
Even-More-Flammable Flannel
Smelly Smocks (Now with more smell!)
Elevator Apparel
"I Did", by He Who Dealt It
Cuttlefish Casual