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Comment by viggity | Hacker News Reader

What this kid has done is certainly cool and I can definitely see very legitimate uses for this technology. But what is so awful about burying plastic garbage? I know it supposedly takes 1000 years to decompose, but what does that matter if it is buried and can't easily be accessed by any animal?

I know that there is a problem with plastic getting into the oceans, but how does this technology help that?

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Actually, I have heard it argued that burying plastic is the best thing we can do for the environment. Our current environmental problems are caused in part by us digging up carbon and releasing it into the air. Putting some of it back in the ground removes it from circulation.

The article closes with a comment about the kid fixing the carbon emissions problem -- which is ironic, considering that his invention makes the problem somewhat worse.

Well, there is already a lot of plastic in the oceans: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch

This could be useful for helping to break down that island if it was seeded with a slurry of this bacteria.

It's not an island. It's not a visibly dense field of floating debris. The process of disintegration means that the plastic particulate in much of the affected region is too small to be seen The Great Pacific Garbage Patch has one of the highest levels known of plastic particulate suspended in the upper water column. Only the continuous addition of new plastic that keeps the consentrations that high, the plastic actually decomposes fairly quickly.

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