There is a researcher named John Todd whose work has been able to break down DDT in a matter of weeks.
In this video, he gives a talk about some various projects. In the first one, he uses these methods to clean up a site contaminated with the top 15 pollutants (at least at the time). Heavy metal were sequestered by algea; 14 of the 15 toxins were below detectable levels, and the 15th was reduced by 99.999%; solids were eaten by armored carp. The output is drinking standard water, and it takes 10 days for the contaminated water to flow through the system.
The key design principle is putting many species across all five kingdoms, from different biomes, and they start self-organizing around the pollutants. The resulting communities break down the pollutant, but are all new.
In a different interview, he talks about microplastics — and while he has not worked on it, he believes a solution can be found in incorporating all five kingdoms. So not just sequestering them, but breaking them down so they can be useful in the ecosystem again.
Was looking for advice on farming Aeonian Butterflies in Elden Ring, but delightfully stumbled across the fact Aeonian butterflys are actually a species of South American butterfly apparently.
One of the books I tried reading, reads like something non-scientific with a liberal sprinkling of mysticism. I personally don’t mind that, but it overshadows the science for people coming in from that way. It’s why I looked for talks that sounds more structured and coming from scientific principles.
This is a different video. If you know what it is going on, it’s interesting. It makes for a poor introduction to his work, let alone the significance: https://youtu.be/8_bxxUub9HU
Tldr: branding sucks, and it’s a shame more people don’t know what he and his colleagues have been up to.
I should probably watch the video, but does he mention anything about dioxin? This has been the main source of pain for my father and his colleagues building sea food farms.
He didn’t talk about any specific toxin by name. It is only a 24 min talk.
It can be tested though through this system though. The last project had not been deployed at the time of this video (2016), but it was a proposal for a design for marinas. Here, he and his colleagues are thinking of smaller, distributed system (miniaturized eco-machines deployed at each dock). He has also experimented with floating systems in rivers, and the Four Season resort system deployed in Hawaii works to cleanup saltwater.
With farms — like any farm, on land or on sea — looking at it as an ecosystem which yields something useful as a byproduct (rather than a system that maximizes extraction) tends to result in a system that is more resilient. That is, the commercial product is a useful byproduct of restoring the ecosystem. Todd’s eco-machine adds additional ecosystems to assist the ecosystem you are trying to restore.
If you ever feel comfortable sharing that story, I’m interested in hearing it.
For me, I came across John Todd’s work from the podcast, Permaculture for the Future. It was part of a much larger toolkit and solutions we already have for healing our land and our home. Since deep diving into all of that, I don’t feel like I am drowning in what looks like the slow destruction of Earth, even as we are seeing more and more extreme weather events.
"business people" will pretty much only allocate resources to endeavors that are financially profitable for themselves and these same people quite often provide financial incentives to politicians who promise to advocate for policies that result in additional profitability for the business people regardless of the environmental or social consequences. Those elected politicians need to be replaced and the capacity for the "business people" to influence elected officials with financial contributions should be limited and involve mandatory transparency. No more unlimited dark money pools.
Expensive doesn’t mean that somebody is greedy, it means that it takes a lot of effort from a lot of people - effort that could probably be spent more effectively.
As with just about everything else, it's a whole lot easier to build a proof-of-concept prototype than it is to solve the problem at scale. New technologies often have either inherent limitations that make it infeasible for them to scale up (e.g. use of fragile or hard-to-manufacture materials, square-cube issues, outsized cleaning/maintenance requirements) or would simply have a staggering cost at any scale that makes a practical difference.
I mean, this is like the moon landing — private companies can build the technology, but it's not going to get deployed at scale unless a government sponsors it, because there's not a clear path to profit.
And like, is congress going to spend $10B deploying this at scale? That would be great, but they can't even pass a budget.
See also the dramatic groundbreaking new battery technologies that have keep getting reported for the last 30+ years. [1]
Not only is there a long lead time between proof-of-concept and scalable production even in the best case, but frequently these nascent technologies have serious drawbacks that aren't mentioned in the article.
I like how we all now know that microplastics and PFAS seriously contaminate our water sources, but there's no real thought about things like nanotubes doing the same thing. Wonder what consuming carbon nanotubes might do to us.
Unless there is something special about carbon chains, ingesting them is probably like ingesting activated carbon. Ingested activated carbon is part of a treatment for poison. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activated_carbon
Well yeah it's a whole different shape (very pointy and can penetrate or shred cell membranes), and the electrical properties of graphene can be pretty weird.
Not the same but some people have experimented with C60 spheres. Apparently it is either very good or it increases ROS reactive oxygen species depending on who you ask and how it is prepared
I was wondering this literally yesterday... are there any current methods for filtering out microplastics? Currently I just have a filter within my fridge for drinking water... but I take it that doesnt do much
The simple carbon filter in your fridge should suffice. Sub micron microplastic (nanoplastics) have not been detected yet, and their sustained existence remains speculative.
If you are still worried, just install a reverse osmosis system. It also has the benefit of filtering away sub-nanometer particles that are actually proven to have negative health effects (such as heavy metals and bacteria).
When microplastics break down they get smaller and become nanoplastics.
Nanoplastics have been detected.
Here is a paper that shows how to measure nanoplastics. Dilute solutions with polystyrene particles from 400nm down to 40nm were prepared and measured.
Demineralized water was put in a polystyrene cup. Microplastics were removed and the remaining nanoplastics were measured. A concentration of ~10^12 particles/l was found.
One thing to be aware of, is some filters system have been found to introduce microplastics. I think it’s primarily the container/piping that does this, but it’s been a long while since I’ve looked at things. It’s not unreasonable to consider the filter housing also as a source.
It's an obsession with convenience, which doesn't have to mean single-serve or disposable. Loose leaf tea is slightly less convenient. It's very hard to argue with people to give up convenience, but if you can figure out how to make loose-leaf tea easier than bags I think people will do it.
I can only imagine food grade wax being way more expensive than PFAS type chemicals. Probably easier to apply as well. Just thinking of all the "reasons" companies would state as to why they justify poisoning us all.
My understanding is that all the covers of fast food (fries holder, hamburger wrapper, inside of paper soda cup) are also covered in PFAS — so far disposable coffee cups. Anything “paper” that is in contact with food, really.
Except for the traditional British fish-and-chips newspaper, but that one should have traditional lead-based ink for flavour.
Plastic tea bags are rare in Germany, although they are getting more popular. Tea bags are usually paper, apparently made from this plant: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abac%C3%A1
"We’ve worked hard to ensure that our tea bags are 99% bio degradable. However, as a result of the manufacturing process, Tetley tea bags do contain a very small amount of plastic to ensure the bags remain closed for you to enjoy your cup of tea."
Perhaps as a profit center to the tea industry. Most tea bags contain the grades of tea that can't be sold in the more expensive loose leaf form. Basically leaf fragments and dust. That material would otherwise be a waste product.
A Gaiwan is one traditional Chinese way of making tea, but those words are literally “covered bowl”. If you don’t want to buy one, you could makeshift your own: brew loose leaf tea in a cup or bowl and pour it into your drinking cup using a small plate.
believe it or not but it's OK to consume the tea leaves and drink slightly bitter tea ;). if you accept this the solution is just not to have tea bags at all. brew with the leaves and drink immediately, and if you forget, enjoy your bitterer tea!
Most tea bags are made of Manila Hemp (a banana plant). Many have a heat-sealable thermoplastic such as PVC or polypropylene on the inner tea bag surface as well, that you never feel or hear about
I would choose a different brand if the tea bags came as plastic and send them a nasty letter. I've been lucky enough to never have encountered them I guess.
> Even satellite imagery doesn’t show a giant patch of garbage. The microplastics of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch can simply make the water look like a cloudy soup. This soup is intermixed with larger items, such as fishing gear and shoes.
"For many people, the idea of a 'garbage patch' conjures up images of an island of trash floating on the ocean. In reality, these patches are almost entirely made up of tiny bits of plastic, called microplastics. Microplastics can’t always be seen by the naked eye. Even satellite imagery doesn’t show a giant patch of garbage. The microplastics of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch can simply make the water look like a cloudy soup. This soup is intermixed with larger items, such as fishing gear and shoes.
"The seafloor beneath the Great Pacific Garbage Patch may also be an underwater trash heap. Oceanographers and ecologists recently discovered that about 70 percent of marine debris actually sinks to the bottom of the ocean" (https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/great-paci...)
Even if this doesn’t go anywhere (due to economics or funding or red tape or whatever), the best parts of this is we know people are actually working to resolve this issue and are making progress.
How does it perform in the real world, where water is contaminated with far more than microplastic - is this filter selective for plastic or will it get gummed up by literally anything?
I don't know how much you know about water filtration plants, but in the real world everything is a series of filters, each more fine-grained than the one before it. You would never use this on unfiltered ocean or waste water - it would be yet-another-stage in the filtration pipeline, after many of the others and possibly before a few more.
Personally I often wonder why things like the seaweed for cows that reduces methane emissions by 99% is not everywhere by now, and we are resorting to masks to trap gases from their breathing and farts.
Sure. This will be a possible add on to home water filtering solutions for paranoid stay at home moms but will not be used at a large scale. Lakes and seas will get filled with more and more microplastics which will enter the foodchain from there.
Readit News
In this video, he gives a talk about some various projects. In the first one, he uses these methods to clean up a site contaminated with the top 15 pollutants (at least at the time). Heavy metal were sequestered by algea; 14 of the 15 toxins were below detectable levels, and the 15th was reduced by 99.999%; solids were eaten by armored carp. The output is drinking standard water, and it takes 10 days for the contaminated water to flow through the system.
The key design principle is putting many species across all five kingdoms, from different biomes, and they start self-organizing around the pollutants. The resulting communities break down the pollutant, but are all new.
https://youtu.be/SeQotnmhO5I
In a different interview, he talks about microplastics — and while he has not worked on it, he believes a solution can be found in incorporating all five kingdoms. So not just sequestering them, but breaking them down so they can be useful in the ecosystem again.
Finally, 35 or 45 entries down I found a reference to an armored catfish. https://a-z-animals.com/animals/armored-catfish/pictures/ I hadn't heard of that, either, but I wonder if that's what you mean.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armored_catfish
Was looking for advice on farming Aeonian Butterflies in Elden Ring, but delightfully stumbled across the fact Aeonian butterflys are actually a species of South American butterfly apparently.
https://gardeninginside.com/where-to-find-aeonian-butterflie...
I couldn't stop laughing.
Are his books good? If so I'll order a copy of Healing Earth for the library.
This is a different video. If you know what it is going on, it’s interesting. It makes for a poor introduction to his work, let alone the significance: https://youtu.be/8_bxxUub9HU
Tldr: branding sucks, and it’s a shame more people don’t know what he and his colleagues have been up to.
It can be tested though through this system though. The last project had not been deployed at the time of this video (2016), but it was a proposal for a design for marinas. Here, he and his colleagues are thinking of smaller, distributed system (miniaturized eco-machines deployed at each dock). He has also experimented with floating systems in rivers, and the Four Season resort system deployed in Hawaii works to cleanup saltwater.
With farms — like any farm, on land or on sea — looking at it as an ecosystem which yields something useful as a byproduct (rather than a system that maximizes extraction) tends to result in a system that is more resilient. That is, the commercial product is a useful byproduct of restoring the ecosystem. Todd’s eco-machine adds additional ecosystems to assist the ecosystem you are trying to restore.
For me, I came across John Todd’s work from the podcast, Permaculture for the Future. It was part of a much larger toolkit and solutions we already have for healing our land and our home. Since deep diving into all of that, I don’t feel like I am drowning in what looks like the slow destruction of Earth, even as we are seeing more and more extreme weather events.
These projects have not made it to the media, but they are there. We’re talking about EPA-funded works, and other sites around the world.
The guy designing and deploying says it is simple enough that students can construct a small scale version.
Expensive doesn’t mean that somebody is greedy, it means that it takes a lot of effort from a lot of people - effort that could probably be spent more effectively.
And like, is congress going to spend $10B deploying this at scale? That would be great, but they can't even pass a budget.
See also the dramatic groundbreaking new battery technologies that have keep getting reported for the last 30+ years. [1]
Not only is there a long lead time between proof-of-concept and scalable production even in the best case, but frequently these nascent technologies have serious drawbacks that aren't mentioned in the article.
[1] "Revolutionary battery checklist": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28025930
also: https://xkcd.com/882/ and https://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1623
Inhaling it though, is a really bad idea.
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If you are still worried, just install a reverse osmosis system. It also has the benefit of filtering away sub-nanometer particles that are actually proven to have negative health effects (such as heavy metals and bacteria).
Nanoplastics have been detected.
Here is a paper that shows how to measure nanoplastics. Dilute solutions with polystyrene particles from 400nm down to 40nm were prepared and measured.
Demineralized water was put in a polystyrene cup. Microplastics were removed and the remaining nanoplastics were measured. A concentration of ~10^12 particles/l was found.
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2021/en/d0en0...
Dead Comment
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=stainless+steel+tea+infuser+ball
Also, there are some cost and shelf life concerns: https://spoonuniversity.com/lifestyle/a-steep-dilemma-tea-ba...
Also, apparently here's some stats about loose-leaf vs bagged tea: https://www.statista.com/forecasts/1093592/preference-for-te...
I assume you could just coat the straw in food grade wax, but for some reason that’s not commonly done.
Except for the traditional British fish-and-chips newspaper, but that one should have traditional lead-based ink for flavour.
Also TIL: Manila hemp.. Manila envelope.. jupp, they were also made from that fiber up until some time ago.
I believe most have transitioned away now... or, at least, the only brand that matters if you're British has transitioned[0]
[0] https://www.yorkshiretea.co.uk/brew-news/plastic-in-tea-bags...
"We’ve worked hard to ensure that our tea bags are 99% bio degradable. However, as a result of the manufacturing process, Tetley tea bags do contain a very small amount of plastic to ensure the bags remain closed for you to enjoy your cup of tea."
https://www.tetley.co.uk/frequently-asked-questions
I can't find a great source for this now, but a quick Google gave https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/great-paci... which says:
> Even satellite imagery doesn’t show a giant patch of garbage. The microplastics of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch can simply make the water look like a cloudy soup. This soup is intermixed with larger items, such as fishing gear and shoes.
"The seafloor beneath the Great Pacific Garbage Patch may also be an underwater trash heap. Oceanographers and ecologists recently discovered that about 70 percent of marine debris actually sinks to the bottom of the ocean" (https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/great-paci...)
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Is the solution scalable? What does it cost?
That bubble never had a chance!
There have been similar issues with this promising approach: https://www.freethink.com/environment/plastic-eating-bacteri...
Personally I often wonder why things like the seaweed for cows that reduces methane emissions by 99% is not everywhere by now, and we are resorting to masks to trap gases from their breathing and farts.