Plastic Eating Fungi, or, why we shouldn't destroy rainforests

Fungi discovered in the Amazon will eat your plastic.

Man, think of the applications of this stuff! I wanna throw it in a genetic engineering lab and see if we can come up with an aquatic variety that'll eat the trash floating in the Pacific. What do you think we should do with a fungus that eats plastic?

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

So is this like striking a huge oil gusher, but with the opposite response for environmentalists?

edited 9th Feb '12 11:22:40 AM by RTaco

Interesting. I wonder if you can now put it actually in the bottom of a landfill. Without upsetting the local environments too much, of course. Guess putting it in landfills would take some time to make sure it doesn't upset foreign environments too much.

They did not say the most important thing. What do these fungi taste like?

Yeah, I get that they are not big ones — according to Wikipedia, it generally just causes spots on leaves of trees — but still, no discovery of a new species should be accepted until this question is answered.

OK, silliness aside: cool. And yeah, this is precisely why we shouldn't destroy rainforests. There is interesting stuff in there.

edited 9th Feb '12 11:28:36 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Sounds great. Only thing that I'm wondering - they describe it as "voracious". How voracious? And what else does it eat?

I think those are the sort of questions we ought to be asking before introducing a species into a different environment. The last thing we want is another kudzu vine on our hands.

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what I'm wondering is how does it spread? because if it spreads via spores, then most consumer electronics are in danger of being consumed by it should it spread to civilization.

Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen Fry

Instead of spreading this fungi all over the landscape, wouldn't it be more reasonable to keep this critter in a garbage processing center and bring plastic to it.

edited 9th Feb '12 12:02:23 PM by nightwyrm_zero

"Why is my laptop dissolving?!"

No, but seriously, this is pretty awesome. What would we use the waste products for...

I just want to say that 'plastic eating fungi' is a great name for a band. Thank you.

First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.

Yeah think of the dangers to our compu

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic

And, unhyphenated, could be read in precisely the opposite of the intended sense, I might add.

Compare "plastic-eating fungi" to "plastic eating fungi". One of those does not say what you think it says.

More seriously, this is very cool but the conditions for using it would have to be very carefully controlled or you will indeed have all your consumer electronics getting eaten.

If only I could use my mod powers to strike you down with lightning right now, I would.

edited 9th Feb '12 12:08:43 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

We should name it Candle Jack becau

edited 9th Feb '12 12:08:06 PM by CDRW

Plastic Eating Fungi sounds much cooler than Plastic-Eating Fungi.

Although there will be that one guy who reviews your band, called "Plastic-Eating Fungi", and then calls it Plastic Eating Fungi, making that your de facto name for eternity.

"Hey, I'm playing Spore on my PC. No, wait, spore is now playing on my PC."

edited 9th Feb '12 12:10:13 PM by Inhopelessguy

wha?

Anyway, I hope people get something useful out of this.

something

Well weaponizing it could lead to some funny stories.

Please.

Neat!

Although I do agree that it would make much more sense to keep the bacteria in a big vat and take the plastic to it, rather than sprinkle the stuff about the countryside

Be not afraid...

But it's not SCIENCE without gross negligence and unforseen consequences!

God, it would seems, knows that man needs some help in protecting his environment.

Kudos to whoever found this stuff.

It was an honor

Micro-organisms will often go into different metabolic modes depending on the presence or absence of oxygen. Yeast, for example, only makes alcohol when there's no oxygen present. So there's likely no worry that this thing might "get loose" and devour the world's plastics as we generally don't keep our plastic appliances and such in anaerobic conditions.

The fungi won't work on most of the plastics we use just on polyurethane.

edited 9th Feb '12 4:34:05 PM by Osmium