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The world's monster plastic problem could be thwarted by mutant bacteria

It sounds like something straight out of a comic book, but the prospects are very real.

CockrellSchool/Youtube

The world could be saved by bacteria

Plastic has been taking over our world for a while now.

You may not think too much about it, but plastic is a global crisis. A recent rundown in The National Review reveals that more than 8 million tons of plastic is regularly deposited in the ocean. It's killing sea life, endangering coral reefs, and affecting the fish we eat because of the toxins they ingest.

So much for a happy, carefree day, right?


But there's some good news on the horizon: Scientists have found a mutant bacteria that eats plastic.

Of course, this mutant bacteria isn't exactly like the kind of mutants you see in movies and comic books. Although, I'll admit I initially thought, "Good! Someone's finally getting Storm to handle this whole climate change business." How cool would that be?

So maybe Professor X isn't coming out of hiding to help us with our global problems, but the reality of this news is just as exciting. According to The Guardian, an international team of scientists have mutated a bacteria's enzyme to fully break down plastic bottles.

The plastic-eating bacteria was first discovered in 2016 in Japan. Researchers studying plastic pollution — specifically polyethylene terephthalate or PET — discovered a colony of bacteria that fed on the plastic, breaking down strong chemical bonds as a means of survival. The bacteria back then, though, was eating through highly crystallized PET — the material plastic bottles are made of — at a slow rate. Researchers knew it would take a while for the bacteria to evolve into the environmental savior we need.

Scientists started studying the bacteria's evolution and discovered they'd unintentionally made it stronger.

"It's alive! It's alive!" they screamed. That's how I imagine the discovery of this mutated bacteria enzyme went, with all the blinking lights and klaxons of a superhero movie. That's what happens in labs, right?

Well, that's how it should have gone. Because this is exciting! After viewing a 3D model of the bacteria, scientists discovered that small modifications could make its enzymes much more effective. The BBC reports that PET takes "hundreds of years" to break down on its own, but with the modified enzyme, called PETase, the same process begins within a matter of days. The enzyme breaks down PET to its original building blocks, meaning that the plastic can be reused again without losing quality.

recycling, reusable, plastic bottles, PET, enzymes

A large blocked cube made up of plastic bottles.

Image via Pixabay.

Here's why this is important: You may think plastic bottles are recycled into new plastic bottles and that every bottle you drink from had a rich and beautiful life before it came to you, but that's not true. In 2017, BuzzFeed reported that Coca-Cola sourced only 7% of its plastic from recycled material and only 6% of Nestle's bottles were made from recycled plastic. The rest of all that single-use plastic being dumped is turned into other fibers like carpet and clothing.

This is because plastics degrade as they're recycled. "Bottles become fleeces, then carpets, after which they often end up in landfill," the BBC notes.

But PETase makes it possible to use PET in its original form over and over again.

We're only at the beginning of this development.

On one hand, PETase could bring us closer to true recycling (producing much less plastic and using much less fossil fuel) than ever before. But the research has only started. The breaking down process still needs to be made faster, so it could be years before PETase or anything like it is used on an industrial scale.

While scientists keep working to make PETase a worldwide plastic problem-solver, we can all do our part by reducing our reliance on plastic. Little things — like a reusable bottle for the gym, keeping metal utensils at work, and reusable bags and totes for trips to the store — can help keep the Earth clean, save animals, and make us a little less reliant on mutants (er, mutant enzymes) to save the day.

Curious to learn more? Watch the video below:


True
Garnier Beauty Responsibly

Growing up, actress and singer Mandy Moore recycled everything she knew how to, which wasn't that much.

She separated glass, plastic, and cans from the regular trash — which was actually pretty revolutionary in the 1980s, even though it's more commonplace today. Since recycling was only just becoming a regular practice, that was the extent of her know-how.

"I didn't grow up with the education that kids today have, in terms of their global footprint," Moore explains.


All photos via Garnier.

While that may be the case, her eco-friendly practices in the 1980s actually outshine the majority of Americans' recycling practices today.

According to the EPA's most recent report on national recycling rates, only 34.6% of garbage is recycled in this country. What's more, beauty and personal care products make up approximately one-third of the trash in landfills.

Considering how many beauty products come in recyclable bottles and packaging now, there's so much recycling that could be taking place but simply isn't.

So Moore stepped up as Garnier's spokesperson and got behind an endeavor to remind people they can do better by their beauty products.

The campaign is called Rinse, Recycle, Repeat, and it's a recycling program that essentially teaches people how to recycle beauty products.

According to Moore, when it comes to beauty products, a lot of people don't know what can and can't be recycled, so they either throw it all in the trash or try to recycle things that can't be collected along with recyclables like glass jars, cans, and paper.

So Garnier teamed up with TerraCycle and DoSomething.org to help take the guesswork out of bathroom recycling by encouraging people to collect their beauty product empties and send them to Garnier for free recycling.

All you have to do is start collecting empty bottles. Once you've accumulated 10 pounds, mail them to TerraCycle.

This attempt to shift consumer behavior has worked beautifully so far. Since 2011, Garnier has successfully kept over 10 million empties out of landfills.

In addition to shifting behavior, it's also about reminding the next generation that even little acts like this can go along way.

That's one of the main reasons Moore's standing behind the movement — so that simple lifestyle changes like this become points of pride for the children of the future.

"I hope that they see something as simple as recycling just a shampoo bottle or a face lotion bottle can really make a difference," Moore says.

After all, changing our — and our children's — recycling habits starts with one bottle and a little mindfulness.

Once you're on the path to a more eco-friendly lifestyle, it's easier to keep going. Just keep reminding yourself that your actions can (and will) change the world.

Thankfully, we live in a time when information is always at our fingertips, so we're even more capable of staying on top of eco-friendly trends.

"I think it's our responsibility to stay informed and to figure out new and sort of innovative ways that we can contribute because we are all connected," Moore says.

And since the younger generations are all about taking action in the face of uncertainty, research will no doubt quickly turn into noticeable change. It's important to keep encouraging that activism as much as we can.

But making changes isn't just on their shoulders. We need to be much more conscious of where our waste ends up. It's not just about our children's future. Climate change is in out midst, but our efforts today have the power to positively impact our future.

To learn more about the Rinse, Recycle, Repeat campaign, check out this video:

Henderson Island should be the remote island paradise of your dreams. Instead, it looks like this:

It wasn't the locals (the island is uninhabited) or any bullheaded tourists who left the rubbish there. Henderson Island sits the middle of the South Pacific, more than 3,000 miles away from Australia, New Zealand, and South America.

It's so far removed that when researcher Jennifer Lavers went there in 2015, it took two planes and convincing a passing freight ship to make a detour, The Atlantic reported.


It's not exactly a spring break trip to Cabo.

And yet the island is home to millions of pieces of trash. An estimated 37.7 million, to be specific. Most of it is plastic, a vast collection of little green army men, red Monopoly motels, cigarette lighters, and discarded toothbrushes.

So who the hell put all that plastic there?

The answer is all of us. We all did.

Photo from Jennifer Lavers/AP Photos.

Henderson Island sits near the middle of the South Pacific ocean gyre, which is a gigantic circle of ocean currents that pick up trash from all across the ocean. Henderson's just an unfortunate obstacle in the way.

“What’s happened on Henderson Island shows there’s no escaping plastic pollution even in the most distant parts of our oceans," Lavers said in a press release.

"Henderson Island is a shocking but typical example of how plastic debris is affecting the environment on a global scale," Lavers said. She and a team of six other people stayed on Henderson for three and a half months to document the pollution. They published their findings this month in a new scientific paper.

This is one island, but it shows how bad the problem is. A 2015 study estimated we could be dumping more than 10 billion pounds of plastic into the ocean each year. Plastic pollution can harm or even kill sea life and can affect human health.

If we don't change something, every beach in the world could eventually look like Henderson Island.

Photo from Jennifer Lavers/University of Tasmania.

We shouldn't lose hope. Whether it's gigantic plastic-collecting pontoons, solar-powered trash-gobblers, beach cleanups, or getting fishermen to nab old, floating nets out of the water, there are ways we can still try to fix this.

Of course, maybe the place to start is to be smarter about how we use plastic in the first place (Lavers herself was so appalled that she's switched to a bamboo iPhone case and toothbrush, the AP reported).

But we need to be aware of what's at stake. Because if this can happen to a deserted island, it can happen at home too.

As the saying goes, there are plenty of fish in the sea.

This is a sea bream (Diplodus Vulgaris) fish. Photo by Emily Irving-Swift/AFP/Getty Images.


But it might be just as true — if not quite as applicable — to say, "There's plenty of plastic in the sea, as well."

In fact, a new report from the World Economic Forum and Ellen MacArthur Foundation predicts that by 2050, our oceans will be filled with more plastic than they are fish. Currently, the ratio of fish to plastic (in weight) is 5:1, but that's changing quickly.

A plastic bottle is seen coated in oil on Pensacola Beach. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

This is likely happening because we love plastic but hate recycling.

As it turns out, only 14% of plastic ever gets recycled. Of the 78 tonnes (around 86 U.S. tons) of plastic produced each year, 40% of it winds up in landfills, and 32% leaks into the soil and oceans.

That's not great. This behavior hurts the world economically: Because most plastic packaging is used just once, somewhere between $80 billion and $120 billion worth of plastic gets discarded each year. It also hurts us environmentally: In addition to the dumping in the ocean, producing plastic has a negative impact on climate change.

So, what's there to do? Well, some very smart people have some very good ideas.

Those ideas are actually the crux of the New Plastics Economy report. It's an achievable three-step plan to change our relationship with plastics, hopefully helping the world both environmentally and economically.

Here's what they recommend:

1. Recycle!

We really need to start recycling. That might mean creating new incentives for consumers to recycle, and it probably involves making the process of recycling more efficient as well as looking into bio-degradable plastic alternatives.

2. Reduce the amount of plastic that ends up in the ocean by encouraging multi-use packaging.

It would be smart to shift to multi-use plastic packaging that has some after-use value. Making it economically advantageous to keep using the same piece of plastic over and over (even if it's for different issues) could save us.

3. Move away from traditional, fossil-fuel-based manufacturing.

Instead of making plastic through traditional methods, we need to put an emphasis on creating technology that allows us to more efficiently manufacture plastic via "bio-based" materials like plants or captured greenhouse gasses.


Photo by Indranil Mukherjee/AFP/Getty Images.

While steps 2 and 3 are mostly about manufacturing, there are some important things we can do as consumers.

Namely, we can stop throwing plastic away! When you toss it, it winds up either in a landfill (not good) or in the ocean (even worse). And while, sure, it may take a little more effort to recycle, you really are helping the environment in the long-run.

I mean, if we want our oceans filled with this...

Photo by Boris Horvat/AFP/Getty Images.

...instead of this...


That's a LOT of plastic. Photo by China Photos/Getty Images.

...we need to step up our recycling game. You in?