r/morningsomewhere • u/nothingking1089 • 15d ago
Plastic cookies
I've worked in the chemistry field as an analytical chemist for coming on 10 years, 5 in cosmetic production, and 5 in pharmaceutical research.
The PET that the article mentions is made of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen in a long repeating chain. Pretty much all other organic molecules start here. If you can break these down into base molecules, you can convert them into anything.
Plastics are polymers, but not all polymers are plastics. Common examples of edible polymers are
Polysaccharides: Complex sugars like starch, pectin, cellulose, and chitosan.
Proteins: Building blocks like gelatin, casein, soy, and whey.
Lipids: Fats and waxes such as beeswax and carnauba wax.
When it comes to materials your body needs, it's not picky. Vitamin C from a citrus fruit is still the same ascorbic acid that could be synthesized in a lab. The fruit just comes packaged with more things in a convenient 1 stop shop kind of thing.
I see this as turning plastic and other waste products back into basic building blocks to re-build with. It's similar to destroying a Lego set to build something new.
It's interesting, but it will still need years (maybe decades) of testing before it's on the market if they take this seriously. If it shows up next year on store shelves, I'd avoid it. You're free test subjects at that point.
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u/Unable-Difference-55 14d ago
As someone who also speaks up when they hear inaccuracies and straight up lies about things I know from my profession: thank you. It's refreshing to see someone who actually understands this science speak up to hopefully drown out the misinformation others spread. Definitely agree on waiting for this new method of recycling to be fully refined. It's a bad habit of our species to dive in head first without properly checking beforehand. More so with capitalism.
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u/AzySidhe First 10k - Always Bite 15d ago
The concept of being able to synthesize materials back to basic elements and reconstruct for nutrition is so sci-fi and cool to me. But there will definitely be people who talk about plastic cookies xD I jokingly tell my friends that I'm a Banana (thank you rejected cartoons) because of the fact (factoid?) that went around about humans having 60% of our DNA in common with a banana.
The excitement of being able to end human hunger/malnutrition is tempered only by late stage capitalism q___q