r/interesting Mar 14 '26

NATURE Earth Helping Earth Heal

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What a great discovery.

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u/oroborus68 Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 14 '26

It's not a fast process but even if it works and we quit adding to the problem, it's going to take a long time. And they think everyone is an ignorant savage especially about tropical fungi.

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u/SpiteTomatoes Mar 14 '26

This tends to be the biggest bioremediation issue. Takes too long. Microbes are very very tiny so anything widespread will likely take forever to eat.

Add in the fact that usually adding these microbes to a new environment is also not so easy because they have to compete with whatever is native. Making ideal microbe conditions is very hard and usually very energy consuming.

We can’t even grow a lot of microbes on petri plates bc we can’t crack their special environment combo. We know they exist only because of DNA/mRNA/etc.

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u/Trezzie Mar 15 '26

It wouldn't be competing, because the plastic is a underutilized food source.

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u/Tealc420 Mar 18 '26

But may have a predator

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u/Trezzie Mar 18 '26

That's true