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In the next Masks story, abandoned buildings in Detroit considered too damaged to repair are being recycled with genetically engineered fungus.
"To break down the wood, mold and plaster, and a few other things," said the man, who represented a company selling methods to safely remove the hazards presented by they many abandoned buildings in the Detroit area. "Any structure which the city says is beyond saving, we seed with our engineered varieties of fungus. They can't survive sunlight or even too much fresh air, so they won't spread beyond where we put them. In just a few weeks, this whole house will be nothing more than a pile of compost."
"So it literally digests old buildings," said Vic, sounding uncertain.
"This stuff turns water-damaged wood and most other construction materials into compost," said the man, proudly. "It does this while also devouring mold. All that will be left untouched is the metal, which we will sift out and recycle."
Comments
Duct tape
is always a possibility.
Heavy Metal Digestion
In Portland, Oregon, along the Willamette River, between the Tillicum Bridge and the Ross Island Bridge are two huge piles of Dirt, (Estimating 75' x 150' and 30' tall). The residents of the area were told that the piles are the concentrated debris of the post WW2 Ship salvage operation that was 'seeded' with an active substance that will break down the heavy metals, asbestos and other stuff.
Believe what you want to, according to some, more than a dozen high rise apartment buildings south of there, were put on top of supposedly less harmful substances and capped with clay to stabilize it. Supposedly, by the time all this pollution kills us, those who remember will also be dust blowing in the wind...
What happens when it spreads
What happens when it spreads to somewhere they dont want it?
Spreads and possibly mutates too!
First off this virus eats both plant based (wood, cloth, etc) and mineral based (Sheetrock, asphalt, etc.) To accomplish this amazing feat of reclamation this virus would need to multiply at an exceeding rate of growth.
Whats to stop it from eating what's left of the lawn, weeds, trees, and things surrounding the building and spreading to the roads and buildings that are not derelict? I can see nothing but bare ground and skeletal frameworks of the steel girders in the tall buildings left as testament of the once large city.
Then the question of what happens when the virus is ingested by a living creature (rats, cockroaches)? Does it kill the creature? Does it mutate and begin eating animal tissue or does it go dormant until it passes through the creatures system and once expelled through the creatures excrement becomes live again?
I think you've just invented the worst plague imaginable :b Even if it never mutates to eating animal tissue it would eventually consume all plant based material on earth leaving all the animals, including humans to eventually starve.
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
It's not a virus, it's a fungus
It won't mutate. At least not quickly enough for it to change its characteristics and spread before dying.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
And then it stays in the soil...
And then it stays in the soil... to eat away foundations of new buildings. No air, no sunlight and probably at least some nutrients for it to survive.
Does it do anything to a
Does it do anything to a glass and steel skyscraper ?
I'm thinking
The judicious use of thermobaric bombs would be much better.
Just don't forget the wieners and marshmallows. And some really long sticks.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Just the tiniest bit dubious...
That fungus will need to be able to turn glass and concrete into compost - and both are essentially minerals. Of the kind that is chemically inert for plants, they cannot extract anything from it, down to molecular level.
Maybe this fungus would be able to somehow sort these minerals away from whatever can be composted? They would be at least 90% of the residual volume.
If the building contains asbestos, that will have to be sorted away from everything else too. Heavy metals too - for example, many older fluorescent lamps contain mercury.
Some other stuff might need separate treatment too, eg. hospital gamma-ray machine radioactive sources. Or products from manufacturing that might have been done there, or waste from stuff that has been kept there...
And if you can sort away such things, they can take care of the metal in a bit cleaner way too.
The phosphors in older
The phosphors in older fluorescent lights also contain fun things like beryllium which is decidedly not good for you.
Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
http://brooke.shadowgard.com/
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks
Can't do anything to glass,
Can't do anything to glass, but glass isn't much of a problem. Plaster and plasterboard are a different matter. Plasterboard/gypsum board are essentially paper coated sheets of rock. Not much to work with there.
old plaster & lath has the laths (wood) and the horsehair. The rest is sand and plaster, again, essentially rock.
Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
http://brooke.shadowgard.com/
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks
Vic is speaking with a
Vic is speaking with a company rep. Who may have oversold the product. :-)
Its primary purpose is to break down wood, as fungus does in a forest. Lumber holds most houses together. With the wood structurally gone the rest can be processed easily.
Just passing through...
It would be a bit strange...
... if Vic doesn't guess about the minerals etc. She is anything but dumb.
She might have reasons to not ask about it, or she might be guessing that, once the wood is degraded, all will be easily processed. But I think this has to be noted, or else it would be bad image for her. :)
There is also the question whether only old buildings with wooden frames are processed. If there is a chance that newish, steel and concrete ones have to be processed too, the fungus won't do much.
(This might even be a plot element. What if the company is asked to break down such a building, and it wants to save their face if the rep has successfully oversold it? :) )
Vic is portrayed in this part
Vic is portrayed in this part of the story as distracted and tired, possibly a bit depressed.
As for the fungus, remember that it is an extrapolation of a real-world invention in a world with mad science. What could possibly go worng?
Just passing through...
For A Start
Let the scavengers loose. Any unbroken glass from windows will soon be spirited away. Concrete will be recycled for paving and road fill. Electrical wiring will disappear like magic. Doors will be removed from the frames and hinges. Soon, all that will be left is a shell.
If you don't believe me, look at what happened to ancient and medieval structures when they were abandoned. The poor are always looking for freebies.
That's something neither the
That's something neither the city nor the company talk about. That much of the work is done by scavengers. :-)
The practice is much older than even ancient Egypt. Pharaohs would take apart their predecessor's monuments to use the pieces in their own projects. Saves a lot of work, dontchaknow... Sometimes the workers wouldn't even turn the stone around, so you have parts of previous monuments obviously incorporated into, for example, the Temple of Karnak.
Just passing through...