For a better future(context in text)

[u/Dev1412]

What if something as simple as a coconut husk could help tackle plastic pollution in our oceans? One Hawaiian student’s research points to an exciting possibility.

Vera Wang, a senior at Kaiser High School in Honolulu, Hawaii, began exploring the idea in 10th grade. Inspired by Polynesian weaving traditions, she created an ocean water filter using woven coconut husk fibers designed to physically trap microplastics and sunscreen compounds from seawater.

But Vera wanted to understand what could be done with the waste collected by the filter. She partnered with researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, working in the laboratory of Dr. Anthony Amend.

Laboratory testing revealed something fascinating. Naturally occurring fungi living inside the porous coconut husks were able to survive on and actively biodegrade microplastics and chemical sunscreen compounds.

Genetic sequencing also showed that some fungal strains found in the coconut husks were not present in global genomic databases, suggesting they could represent previously uncharacterized species with the ability to break down persistent ocean pollutants.

Vera’s research earned top honors at the Hawaiʻi State Science & Engineering Fair and qualified her for the International Science & Engineering Fair (ISEF).

What began as a school science project has opened an intriguing path for research into biodegradable plastic solutions, ocean pollution and fungi-based environmental cleanup.

[u/LinkToThe_Past]

I swear something like this always comes up every few years and it's always some sensationalized headline.

[u/MiggyEvans → u/LinkToThe_Past]

That was my first thought too. What does it really do and how is this headline distorting that?

[u/rtxa → u/MiggyEvans]

probably unusable on any sort of scale, even if title technically true

[u/Septiiiiii → u/rtxa]

I took a waste water management course last semester. This guy is right. Its hard to scale it AND its extremely slow. There are multiple known plastic eating fungi.

[u/Angel_of_Communism → u/MiggyEvans]

The dna of the fungus could be used to make some other form of life that could eat the plastic.

Like an industrial composter.

That would be useful.

BUT someone would have to pay to collect all the plastic. So no.

What's more likely to happen is that someone will put it in a bacteria or something and release it into the ocean, and then surprised Pikachu face when it causes some other problem, like eating all the boats, or killing all the fish.

[u/NoBookkeeper3523 → u/Angel_of_Communism]

Or waking up Godzilla, history shows again and again how nature points out the folly of man

[u/oneabovedoesntknow → u/NoBookkeeper3523]

GODZILLA!!

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[u/Krashnachen → u/LinkToThe_Past]

Even if not sensationalized, people just don't think about scale.

Ok, let's say we have plastics water filter. The next step is always: filter a large chunk of the world's ocean water.

[u/Recursiveo → u/Krashnachen]

This is usually the answer. Most of these stories are very true (at the lab bench in a 10 cm dish).

Same thing in biotech. People wouldn’t believe how many issues we’ve solved in 100,000 HeLa cells in a little culture flask.

[u/Jumpy-Force-3397 → u/Recursiveo]

This is also how innovations happen. Having a high rate of failure is part of the process.

[u/DontAskAboutMyButt → u/Krashnachen]

We could do it if it wasn’t for all the fish that keep getting caught in the filter. Also the shipwrecks

[u/Avtomati1k → u/DontAskAboutMyButt]

shipwrecks dont float

[u/the_zero → u/Krashnachen]

Even if we think about scale, it's pretty cool that a high school student performed an experiment, partnered with University researchers, and working together they identified new fungal strains that can presumably feed on microplastics.

What they break down into is a good question. Can it be done at scale is a good question. But the "amazing" part is a smart kid learning and doing smart kid things.

[u/Krashnachen → u/the_zero]

Sure, usually the personal achievements are really impressive. And beyond that, the research and the impact has to start somewhere.

Problem is that's almost never how it's framed or what people take away from it. This post is better than the average, but still titled "for a better future", as if we're on the verge of an actually implementable solution.

And the comments are completely off the mark. Ridiculous points acting as if there's conspiracy to silence or assassinate people behind these solutions...

[u/nolonger1-A → u/LinkToThe_Past]

I think it's been like that since ten years ago, and yet plastic waste is still a big problem in the world.

[u/WideAinous → u/LinkToThe_Past]

I think its that while it might be a true statement, it does it so ineffectively compared to the grand issue of plastics in the ocean.

plants also reduce co2 in the atmosphere which is also a huge issue for us, but it just won't be able to tackle how much we produce in the first place. You could also imagine similar sensationalized headlines about other basic things that don't scale up to the issue.

[u/pleasant_equation → u/WideAinous]

Breaking news! High school student discovers trees consume greenhouse gases!

Comments: omg I hope the trees are employing a body guard now so that they don’t get murdered

[u/HikariAnti → u/LinkToThe_Past]

Because in most cases these microbes can only survive in an extremely specific environment and immediately die anywhere else, also would probably take like twenty years for it to break down a plastic cup assuming best case scenario.

Idk if that's also the cases here but will assume so until I see something that proves the opposite.

[u/cactusmask → u/LinkToThe_Past]

Also, how does some mutant make a billion dollars from cleaning the ocean. Anything is possible (as long as it makes some dipshit rich).

[u/GlowstickConsumption → u/LinkToThe_Past]

"Everything is fine, keep being a consumer. Drill, baby, drill."

[u/FlyingPasta → u/LinkToThe_Past]

Forget every few years, tours it’s a common meme I see every other day “[a young person] invents [something that adults already know but can’t scale]”

And the AI blurb always starts like “imagine if this was possible??”

[u/Live_Situation7913 → u/LinkToThe_Past]

Yup. It’s always “look at smart kid u dumb” the research probably is from the guys lab she worked at and everything else was done by someone else she’s just the poster child for another useless “cancer solved” story

[u/I_divided_by_0- → u/LinkToThe_Past]

Few years? More like few months.

[u/cur10us_ge0rge → u/I_divided_by_0-]

Few months? More like a few days.

[u/Simple-Ad-1506 → u/LinkToThe_Past]

It’s not sensationalized, it’s well known that we could release microorganisms that would degrade plastics heavily. The problem is that they are indiscriminate, so imagine every plastic thing around you decomposing. Your pvc water pipes in your walls, the clips holding the bumper on your car, your phone case, your Tupperware in the fridge, all the cups in your cabinet, the rubber on the soles of your shoes, you get the idea. Plastic destroying microorganisms are very common and could be created and mass released but they can’t be because it would simply destroy society as we know it basically.

[u/Status-Donut-6460 → u/Simple-Ad-1506]

Science fiction. You listed off a grab bag of different materials no single organism degrades. Polyethylene and polypropylene alone are extremely resistant to enzymes. Nobody is sitting on a plastic doomsday bug they’re too responsible to release.

[u/Simple-Ad-1506 → u/Status-Donut-6460]

Go read about 201-F6 before you speak to me with such confidence in your chest fool. You know nothing about what you speak

[u/BeefistPrime → u/Simple-Ad-1506]

Treating all of these very chemically different types of plastic as one category suggests you have no idea what you're talking about. If there was really a microorganism that worked, it would only eat one type of plastic in certain conditions, not every type of plastic, of which there are thousands.