News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:New plant-based plastics can be chemically recycled with ... by beckman466 on Saturday February 20, 2021 @05:02PM (#26208393)
Or... we could not use so much plastic, and make actual bricks to build ‘millions of houses’.

Since you sound so excited, are you going to live in the first plastic house with your family?

I think suggestions like this are super demeaning. I often see them coming from privileged knowledge workers, who are eager to share ‘free ideas‘/psuedo-solutions as a sort of ‘charity’ for poor people (and people in the global south). They are also often strategies which somehow don’t seem to fit for their own life - and instead are for ‘others’ who are less well off.

In other words: tech solutionism.

As knowledge workers, let’s try to cut through our false consciousness and come up with some awesome systemic changes that kick butt.

Re:New plant-based plastics can be chemically recycled with ... by joshspankit on Saturday February 20, 2021 @05:41PM (#26208664)
Demeaning or proposing ‘charity’ was not my intent at all.

I’ve edited my comment to clarify the subtext, but to answer your question: if we could find a health-safe fire and UV-resistant plastic formula that made solid building materials out of the pollution in the ocean, I would definitely live in the first plastic house with my family. It could survive hundreds of years and have a lot of benefits.

Re:New plant-based plastics can be chemically recycled with ... by dEnigma on Saturday February 20, 2021 @06:14PM (#26208983)
You're reading a lot into that short parent comment. Maybe you should be a bit more generous in your interpretation of other people's words.