[boffinAudio]

At some point I wonder if its going to be viable to harvest ocean plastic, and use it to produce energy .. and every time I see one of my favourite remote-beach Youtubers climb over piles of plastic rubble on some remote tropical island, I can't help get the feeling that there has to be some kind of way to make a portable, self-replicating 3D printer that can go out there and just reproduce itself.

But I guess the chemistry behind all of this is beyond me. It sure seems like the 3D-printing revolution needs to be followed up with a plastics-deconstruction phase, so that 3D printers don't get factory-produced spools of future ocean-bound plastics, but rather a giant hopper into which one can pile collected plastics from the environment. Some sort of primordial proto-Feed, I guess ..

[wffurr]

"portable, self-replicating 3D printer" you mean bacteria? I am sure someone is working on plastic eating bacteria but it might not be a great idea to have it loose in the world.

[globalise83]

Nature seems to be on the case already, for example: https://futurism.com/the-byte/plastic-eating-fungus-pacific-...

[vmfunction]

Many scientists/people only think about problem in the scope of the their discipline. Keep in mind this is the problem-solution knee jerk (treat the symptom) responses is how we got to our current situation in this world.

Oh we don't like horse dung, we going with cars now!

With bio-engineering such as this, many intergenerational horizontal studies need to be done before it even should be consider releasing in the wild.

[boffinAudio]

I'd prefer it had an off switch and an API entirely subservient to our needs, rather than DNA.

[kjkjadksj]

You can engineer systems that effectively have an off switch (sterilized progeny with short life or a certain environmental lethality condition e.g. dependent on you constantly supplying certain substance) as well as even an API (e.g. built in features that enable integration with other genetic techniques such as insertion sites for cloning).

[lukan]

"At some point I wonder if its going to be viable to harvest ocean plastic"

I hope not. You can harvest landfills much cheaper today. If that becomes more expensive than taking plastic from the ocean, then the oceans would be really full of plastic.

[boffinAudio]

The ocean is a major source of energy which could be used to power the thing.

And I'd prioritize ocean cleanup over landfill, first of all. I mean, maybe we use the ocean to construct the fleet, and then when its nice and clean, send the fleet to land ..

[kjkjadksj]

Landfill is also a source of energy. Some cities have built power plants that are fueled by landfill emissions or through incineration of excess materials.

[lukan]

You might want to learn something about engineering first. And run some numbers.

And read about them, who tried something way less ambitioned:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ocean_Cleanup

And still were not that effective.

[boffinAudio]

Oh, this is just a thought experiment, the engineering isn't within our grasp.

I'd imagine some sort of floating device which can build copies out of itself with the plastics it finds is not far away, but it probably does involve a fair bit of science before it becomes more than just fiction..

[lukan]

If we would have that tech, we also could then release the engineered plastic eating bacterias. Way easier.

But currently we want some plastic to remain intact.

[robertlagrant]

> a giant hopper into which one can pile collected plastics from the environment

A bit like Mr Fusion[0]?

[0] https://backtothefuture.fandom.com/wiki/Mr._Fusion

[dylan604]

As long as that means we also "don't need roads" too!

[mlhpdx]

Already being done?

https://theoceancleanup.com/