"
Team:UC Davis/Project
From 2012.igem.org
UCDavis iGEM Tweets
Our Sponsors
Project
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.
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. 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. Within the landfills, rainwater can trickle through the trash, creating toxic leachate. The leachate carries microorganisms and toxic chemicals into drinking water sources.
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. 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.
