this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2023
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Environment
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Breaking down plastic is already super super unappealing to any life form. The biggest reasons it's so useful to us is because it's basically super tightly woven strands which the engineered bacteria have to be forced to break apart, when the planet is filled with more readily available food like sugar molecules. The plastic eating bacteria they discover in the "wild" basically were isolated and surrounded only with plastic, and so had literally no other choice.
Releasing this bacteria into the wild won't be an option (but given human nature it will remain an option), their use would likely be in closed facilities with big vats to break down plastic (operated by the lowest paid employees who can't wait to skip the decontamination hallway because the football game is tonight).
Them skipping the imaginary decontamination hallway wouldn't be a problem because of exactly what you outlined in your first paragraph