It’s not as bad as it sounds. PET plastic has the same atoms as sugar, so it’s matter of reorganising it.
The researchers engineered an yeast that eats plastic and “ferments” it into sugar
i love when left wing progessive lemmys loop around and turn into hard right conspiracy theorists
this also isn’t a meme, does this comm have any moderators?
Lemmy is just awful about reacting only to the headlines, especially with popsci reporting. The above referenced work is kick ass - converting one of the most common garbage plastics into sugar with a bioengineered yeast is cool as hell. sure it’s a headline born of the petite dystopia we live in, but it’s a really optimistic breakthrough and not at all a dystopian thing in itself.
I remember seeing the youtuber NileRed doing similar experiments:
Making grape soda from disposable vinyl gloves.
Turning paint thinner into cherry soda
Making hotsauce from plastic gloves
It’s Carbohydrates all the way. Always has been 🔫
Cyberpunk is cumming
