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Comment by vatsachak | Hacker News Reader

Plastic is a source of energy. I am sure that we need to gameplan for a post-plastic world in the future after some bacteria/fungi learn to eat it

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We are increasingly finding bacteria and fungi that eat various plastics. Not just lab-grown, but actual organically evolved bacteria eating PLA and the like

That said, I doubt this will become apocalyptic. Wood is highly biodegradable, yet even untreated wood will last decades if you keep it dry and away from soil. Microorganisms eating plastic will make it less weather-resistant and maybe worse food packaging, but it won't kill all use of plastic

We already make car wiring insulation out of soya-based plastic, which is highly biodegradable and palatable to micro- and macro-organisms of all sorts.

Which is why so many modern cars have weird electrical faults and fires.

I can attest that the soya-based wiring can be a nightmare in some locales. A family member bought a new Acura in the 2010s and the car was a constant target of the local rat population that would climb into the engine bay and fill up on wiring insulation like it was gummy candy. He had the wiring harnesses replaced several times but ultimately gave up and sold it after the final repair.

It seems like they could incorporate capsaicin and other deterrents into the polymers, but that probably isn't pleasant for individuals involved in the production process.

FWIW, it's a myth. Confirmation bias continues to drive it. Rats love wires no matter what they are made of, they happily chew up petroleum-based plastics too.

Yeah I've replaced wiring in farm rigs going back to the mid-70s. Rats and mice just like wiring.

The myth will never die. Plastics that use soy degrade no faster than petroleum based plastics, and do not attract rodents to a greater extent either. Rodents love to chew on all wires, including petroleum-based ones.

How frequently do you repair electrical faults on cars?

Not as often lately, because as I have gotten older I started buying newer cars and not keeping them as long.

Not sure what the point of your question is, though.

Well, on a lot of the stuff I repair, you can see the soya-based stuff gets destroyed, not just by mice and rats but it gets white stuff on and then goes brittle and crumbly.

Meanwhile with the exception of wires in high-temperature areas, PVC just doesn't do that.

Now you're conflating rodent chewing and other degradation. That just increases my suspicion that there's confirmation bias going on.

Notice how in my first comment I said "highly biodegradable"? It's just a couple of posts above this one. In fact here you go, have a permalink:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50185779

The thing to understand about the soy stuff is that the soy part gets completely reformed chemically into a polymer, it's not anything food-like by the time it becomes part of the plastic.

Aside from that ... this is not an anecdote vs anecdote debate, these wires have been around for decades and this exact question has been studied scientifically. The degradation rate and wire-chewing prevalence are comparable with PVC.

I hope it will though (kill all use of plastic).

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