The Pacific Gyre patch, the floating collection of trash flotsam, has
a mass of 100 million tons and is currently an incurable illness to
our planet. 90% of oceanic pollution is plastic, 80% of which comes
from land, the other 20% from vessels. The waste in the ocean ranges
from nets, bottlecaps, 6 bottle rings, plastic bottles etc. Marine
animals can mistake the plastic debris as food, but since they cannot
digest plastic they can starve. Plastic six pack rings can also choke
animals by closing off the airway. 200,000 albatross die per year from
marine pollution and that doesn’t scratch the surface of ecological
damage. Plastic in the ocean can be photodegraded into smaller
molecules that are then ingested as a form of toxins that accelerates
the process of biomagnifications. From an economic standpoint,
collisions with floating or submerged waste objects has caused 269
boating accidents, resulting in 15 deaths, 116 injuries and 3 million
dollars in damage. Furthermore, those are only the figures of marine
pollution that have not been update yet. The plastic at sea is
predominantly plastic bottles, bags, and nurdles. Nurdles are a small
pellet form of plastic that are then used to create larger materials.
Within the landfills, rainwater can trickle through the trash,
creating toxic leachate. The leachate carries microorganisms and toxic
chemicals into drinking water sources, making its impact go beyond the
landfill. The Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is a commonly used
plastic due to its durability and molecular stability, but its high
molecular weight and hydrophobicity also make it one of the hardest
plastics to degrade. PET is used in beverage containers, oven food
trays, and video tapes. Although the PET recycling rate has increased
from 7% to 30% in the last few years, a majority of the plastic is
still dumped in landfills and continues to pollute the environment.
Most plastics are made from petroleum, oil or natural gas, and a
variety of chemicals that are toxic to humans (including ethylene
glycol). Phthalates and Bisphenol-A (BPA) are the most common types of
chemicals used to make plastic materials. Phthalates have been known
to cause diseases related to cancer or hormonal imbalances. BPA is
often known to leak from bottles and migrate into liquids and foods it
comes into contact with. Many factories are opening up in nations,
such as China, that are churning out millions of tons of plastic by
using these kinds of chemicals. Instead of approaching the problem by
reducing the amount of input coming in, most firms are simply
increasing the amount of bioplastic. These “biobottles” are only 30%
biodegradable, meaning that there is still an influx of
non-biodegradable plastic coming into our environment, rather than
simply reusing older plastic. Using synthetic biology our company is
not only taking non biodegradable plastic and reducing it to a
feedstock for cells, but harvesting the components that can be then
used to create more plastic.
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