> can be water stabilized with hydrophobic coatings

So when they make takeout containers out of this it's going to be coated with... something. I am suspicious of all these coatings they're slapping on compostable food containers these days.

Well, even vegetable oil is hydrophobic, so "something" needn't be too horrible. (Oil would obviously wipe off too easily.)

Apparently soybean wax works well: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7435775/

Though not for hot foods. It'll only work up to 50°C.

Or hot climates that reach >50 C

Or simple locked car on a sunny day (maybe not during winter), with dark interior. This can reach >90C over an hour or two.

No car interior has ever reached 90C. Did you mean 90 F?

There's no reason you'd ever worry about that; no one can use any object in such a climate, because they'd die.

People definitely live in places where it gets that hot. (And note that's the air temperature in the shade, not even surface temperatures in sunlight which can get much hotter).

People survive because it's not 50°C all the time in those hot places. And the wet bulb temperature is lower, so sweating works (just about) to regulate body temperature. Mostly air conditioning and shelter, though.

You have not been paying attention.

https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Coperni...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/22/west-africa-he...

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-66229057

Those links aren't shy about explaining that people exposed to that level of heat die. Here's the first one:

> According to a study recently published in Nature Medicine, more than 60 000 people died because of last year’s summer heatwaves across Europe.

It's not necessary for your home food storage to be able to survive temperatures that you can't. If it happens to the food in your home, it will happen to you too.

There's also shellac.

They specifically mention a coating in the abstract, parylene C.

I am suspicious of the food in the takeout containers.

Perhaps some sort of food-grade wax? Although then you've got to worry about hot foods...

My aunt got me a big wooden bowl in college and I was poor so I ate popcorn out of it. I noticed the popcorn tasted weird for quite some time. I finally put two and two together when the coating had all come off the bottom. The hot popcorn and oil had been removing the God knows what shiny finish and I had been eating it. :(

> Plastics that can metabolize in oceans are highly sought for a sustainable future.

Really? I think that putting more nutrients in the water is almost as bad as having plastics floating around. The Baltic sea for example, have dead zones caused by agricultural runoff.

Surely, the best would be to not put more stuff in the water?

it is certainly good to not put more stuff in the water. i would suggest it is even better not to make stuff that shouldn't go in the water. but apparently a lot has already been made and there's constantly more of it in the water, and it looks like nobody is stopping

so if some major fraction of present production of that shit that shouldn't go in the water can be eliminated, and satisfied by an alternative that is not a persistent accumulating poison, i'll take it

Depends on what you put in, how much, and where.

I do not think moderate quantities of nutrients are a problem, and very likely has benefits.

The natural input of "nutrients" to the ocean is vast, compared to the natural input of modern artificial plastics.

Well yeah but good luck with that.

Interesting that this is a thermoplastic - my first question is how it performs as a 3D printer filament?