Plastic containers, bottles, and flip flops end up in waste streams and the environment. Weather and erosion can turn it into tiny particles called microplastics. Tire wear on the road is also a major cause.
Microplastics are usually too small to even notice.But you do You can see it if you try hard enough.
“For example, if you go to a beach in San Diego and you start looking at the sand, you may start to see tiny particles that are actually pieces of plastic,” says Michael Burkhart, a professor of biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego. “And the problem is they’re getting into our food supply, our water supplies, and contaminating the world around us. We’ve found them in every human organ.”
The reason microplastics are all around us and in our bodies is because petroleum-based plastics last for hundreds of years. They will never disappear during our lifetime.
However, degradable plastics made from plants are do.
UCSD research has proven that these earth-friendly plastics disappear within months. Researchers ground the plant-based plastic very finely and tested it in several natural environments.
“After 120 days, we couldn’t even find any particles. They were completely gone,” Burkhart said. “The products we tested are EVA (or) ethylene vinyl acetate, which is commonly used in things like shoes and flip-flops. They haven’t changed at all over the same period of time and are still here to stay.”
Plant-based plastics are consumed by bacteria and other microorganisms. Plant-based plastics therefore represent an effective way to address the huge problem of plastic pollution. In fact, Burkhart says some of these tiny bacteria found the biodegradable plastic developed in UCSD’s lab tasty and nutritious.
“And in that compost, we discovered microorganisms that were completely able to survive on bioplastic as their only food source. That was really exciting,” he said.
the studyThe co-authored work with Michael Burkart was published in Nature Scientific Reports.
Burkart and several of his UCSD colleagues founded a company called . algenesis material. The company is dedicated to working with industry to develop products that find ways to use plant-based plastics as practical alternatives to non-degradable petroleum plastics.
