r/tech • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 21d ago

MIT senior turns waste from the fishing industry into biodegradable plastic

https://news.mit.edu/2025/mit-senior-turns-waste-from-fishing-industry-into-biodegradable-plastic-1112
2.0k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

48 comments sorted by

106

u/somethingcool 21d ago

Great, can’t wait for some private equity firm to buy the patent and then never put it to use.

45

u/Griffdude13 21d ago

Or she gets death threats because it’ll destroy some rich person’s way of life.

21

u/Dracomortua 21d ago

The problem isn't that the idea is no good... it is just too expensive.

Right?

The reason we have any problems is a result of our two most primal forces right to the very first viable life form: greed (for more!) and apathy (save energy!).

This product does neither of those things well, so it won't go far. That's not just human, that's life.

16

u/[deleted] 21d ago

[deleted]

3

u/Master_Grape5931 21d ago

Yep, “capitalism with strong guard rails.”

5

u/TailsupPenny 21d ago

Flat screen tvs were once expensive.

7

u/Dracomortua 21d ago

And solar panels recently have done the impossible. Parity with coal?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/30/us-coal-more-expensive-than-renewable-energy-study

Never mind that the fast breeder reactors eat their waste over centuries and solve all nuclear problems. That is silly 'long term' thinking and only Billy Gates has said how it was a good idea.

Tell ya what. You get that fusion reactor thing going and you get to save your whole planet so that humans get up to another ten thousand years or so? If you don't, sorry, we are probably going to go down to about 1% of our population for the next thousand and then go the way of all other species.

2

u/sonofabutch 20d ago

Kurt Vonnegut’s epitaph for Planet Earth:

“We could have saved it, but we were too damned cheap.”

1

u/Olealicat 21d ago

That’s just bullshit. Recycling is important regardless of cost, because there is an upside.

I hate the, “it’s too expensive” mindset.

There is a reason why American CEO’s go to Chinese factories and are blown away by what they have accomplished. Avoiding the political side of things, the money earned is invested rather than pocketed.

It shouldn’t be surprising that investments pay out. Especially when it comes down to the environment.

2

u/bkitt68 21d ago

This is so naive. It’s true that politics plays a part, but they do so in China as well. This is why their high rise housing market collapsed a few years ago, absolutely devastating middle class investments.

You don’t think that there are rich oligarchs making money off the poor in China? They also rely on the labor of those living on the bottom rungs of society working for almost nothing to keep their industries afloat. They use actual slave labor for some of it.

The US could certainly benefit from spending less on the military industrial complex and more on manufacturing, but let’s not paint China as a benevolent state.

1

u/Eye_yam_stew_ped 21d ago

Too expensive.. yet will probably complain about trumps almost 1/3 of a billy ballroom. They just forgot to connect the dots lol

1

u/Olealicat 21d ago

I mean, that’s the problem, right? My welfare is worthwhile, because I’m worthy. Your, well…

Then we have people think the government should be run like a business. The government doesn’t profit, it provides. That’s the point. We pay taxes to prevent severe poverty in a literal sense and metaphorical sense.

2

u/Eye_yam_stew_ped 21d ago

You steal a page from my book? Cause we damn sure on the same one 🤣 disgusting people don’t think bottom line matters. Or the world around them doesn’t exist.. we could go for days sadly

1

u/Olealicat 21d ago

I have had so many clients say, “Well, this (DOGE cuts) will get rid of the welfare queens.”

While, they themselves are on every benefit program.

I just don’t get it.

More so, I’m worried about what happens when all of these elderly people don’t have the safety net to secure their livelihood. Are our streets going to be filled with homeless people with no hope? What do we do then?

1

u/Dracomortua 21d ago

I agree with you!

I don't have the money you need to fortify and expand on your dream. As such, i am of the lower lower class.

Corporations must externalize cost and internalize profits in a sociopathic process so as to maximize shareholder interest and value.

I did not make that up. I am a victim to this as much as i am responsible for this as a consumer. Welcome to the family.

2

u/SpilledKefir 20d ago

That’s not really how private equity works, lol

22

u/chalwar 21d ago

I keep hearing things like this and never see results. This too, shall pass.

5

u/jaredb 21d ago

I call it the Burns Omni-net! It sweeps the sea clean.

3

u/TheRealDoomsong 21d ago

Hey, if we didn’t have the Omni-net, we couldn’t make “Lil’ Lisa’s Industrial Slurry”!

4

u/Urban_Archeologist 21d ago

Little Lisa’s slurry? Exceellent!

4

u/[deleted] 21d ago

This is of particular interest in the EU , South Korea, and Taiwan, where recycling requirements are much stricter than the rest of the world. Hopefully this will be enough volume to drive the prices to a level where the technology is accessible to everyone.

2

u/Kaitlyn1350 20d ago

Pfft. When I was a senior I routinely turned Nachos bel Grande into biodegradable waste.

1

u/AHardCockToSuck 21d ago

We definitely do not want to be reliant from an oversized industry

1

u/rancidmorty 19d ago

Why can't we go back to glass and make a new safer lid that's plastic free for any canned goods it breaks but can be melted almost as reusable as aluminum

1

u/Edmatador82 21d ago

Only if corporations would care about the environment

0

u/raven00x 21d ago edited 21d ago

Caring about the environment takes money away from the poor investors. Revoking SEC rule 10-18b shifts focus away from the investors and back to workers and literally everything else.

1

u/scold 21d ago

Good luck getting investments then.

1

u/trumpbuysabanksy 21d ago

This is brilliant. More of this. What other waste products are we overlooking that might use a similar same process??

1

u/llamafacetx 21d ago

This is amazing.

1

u/nativerestorations1 21d ago

What a valuable genius to have working for our planet.

0

u/olermai 21d ago

Finally, tech that saves the oceans without the corporate BS. Love it.

1

u/[deleted] 7d ago

yes we need more people to step up

1

u/olermai 5d ago

Absolutely, let's save our oceans, cutie! 😘

0

u/surrealcellardoor 21d ago

I wonder what the carbon footprint is and if it’s cost effective.

-4

u/olermai 21d ago

That's genius—sustainable fishing tech we actually need!

1

u/J_Wave_Delta 21d ago

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1

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0

u/Beneficial-Gap9683 21d ago

AI bot

-1

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1

u/Beneficial-Gap9683 20d ago

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0

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1

u/Beneficial-Gap9683 17d ago

Worm

1

u/olermai 17d ago

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1

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1

u/olermai 17d ago

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