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by throwaway920102 711 days ago
Not a single mention in the article of their biggest downside, environmental costs.
2 comments

I would have been interested in the recycling aspect of these materials. We already struggle with plastic and PFAS, should this not be discussed before there's another problem?
The same demons who create those materials are responsible for composites.
There are many ways to be environmentally costly... Can you be more specific?
Leave some steel around and it oxidizes away while otherwise being mostly harmless. Leave some carbon fiber embedded in resin around and it leaches endocrine disruptors and eventually turns into a pile of microplastic.
The resins used in carbon fiber for example do not biodegrade. New studies are coming out everyday demonstrating that microplastics and nanoplastics of synthetic materials interfere with the Earth's biosphere, in all sorts of ways. DNA transcription errors, hormonal disruption, increase in arterial plaque and heart attack/stroke, etc. Considering the article is largely about composite materials formed using resins, it stands out that no mention is made of synthetic, plastic resins vs the potential for biodegradable, non-accumulating resins.

For carbon fiber, a quick google reveals that polyacrylonitrile is the most widely used resin. According to google it is not readily biodegradable: https://www.igtpan.com/Ingles/reciclagem_poliacrilonitrila.a....