Other problem I see is the same as the poop vaporizer in the Jack Black's movie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Envy_%28film%29. The fact that the shit is nowhere to be seen does not mean that it is not there anymore.
We know this kid figured out a natural process to fade plastic away. The problem with every process is that it has outputs as well as inputs. It is not a black hole where all plastic bags get lost forever. For the project to "solve" any environment problem (for future waste disposal, what is spread already is likely to remain so) it has to avoid creating dangerous byproducts itself. One risk I see is that very likely the bacteria in this experiment produce some sort of greenhouse gas that is released all over the atmosphere; which is a bad outcome, instead of having that same material buried in a single, concentrated (aka. small), non-livable place.
It is true that the bacteria must emit some sort of gas or waste product. I wonder if the bags were put into special chambers that could capture the gas and turn it into some kind of usable fuel.
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Other problem I see is the same as the poop vaporizer in the Jack Black's movie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Envy_%28film%29. The fact that the shit is nowhere to be seen does not mean that it is not there anymore.
We know this kid figured out a natural process to fade plastic away. The problem with every process is that it has outputs as well as inputs. It is not a black hole where all plastic bags get lost forever. For the project to "solve" any environment problem (for future waste disposal, what is spread already is likely to remain so) it has to avoid creating dangerous byproducts itself. One risk I see is that very likely the bacteria in this experiment produce some sort of greenhouse gas that is released all over the atmosphere; which is a bad outcome, instead of having that same material buried in a single, concentrated (aka. small), non-livable place.
It is true that the bacteria must emit some sort of gas or waste product. I wonder if the bags were put into special chambers that could capture the gas and turn it into some kind of usable fuel.