Plastic is polluting our waterways and oceans, but biotechnology may deliver solutions. Plant-based bioplastics that can break down in months are one solution. Another is mighty microbes bioengineered to speed up consumption of plastic. This episode spotlights scientists, companies and even a filmmaker and artist who are working in different ways to tackle the growing problem of plastic waste.
Plastic is polluting our waterways and oceans, but biotechnology may deliver solutions. Plant-based bioplastics that can break down in months are one solution. Another is mighty microbes bioengineered to speed up consumption of plastic. This episode spotlights scientists, companies and even a filmmaker and artist who are working in different ways to tackle the growing problem of plastic waste.
Guests:
Scott Tuten, Chief Marketing and Sustainability Officer, Danimer Scientific
Andrew Held, Vice President of Engineering & Business, Virent
Dr. Tae Seok Moon, Associate Professor of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis, Founder and head of the Scientific Advisory Board, Moonshot Bio
Ben Lear, Independent Film Producer/Director
Speaker 1: Plastics. You know about them, you may not love them, but chances are, you use them every single day. Enough plastic is thrown away each year to circle the globe four times. By 2050, researchers estimate that there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish.
Speaker 2: For so long, we felt like we didn't have a choice. We didn't have any alternatives. That's not necessarily true. You can make plastic from soy, you can make plastic from grass, you can make plastic from corn.
Speaker 3: Back in May, 2020, our friends in the science world brought us news that nature had evolved an enzyme that could chomp through the strong polymer chains in plastics like polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, which is what plastic bottles are made of. It was a very exciting discovery.
Theresa Brady: We all know there's too much plastic waste. While most of us try to do our part by recycling, the truth is, less than 10% of plastic is actually recycled. Most plastic piles up in landfills and waterways. Fish, turtles, and even small, deep sea creatures have been found with microplastics in their stomachs. Microplastic has even been found in human bloodstreams. In this episode, we talk with four people who are tackling the problem in different ways. We'll hear from scientists, and even an artist, about what they're doing to reduce plastic waste. I'm Theresa Brady, and you are listening to "I Am Bio."
Replacing fossil based, non biodegradable plastic with plant-based options is one part of the solution to the plastic problem. Danimer Scientific, a company based in Georgia, is making green bioplastics from canola. Scott Tuten, Danimer's chief marketing and sustainability officer, shared a personal story about why he is so committed to the work he's doing.
Scott Tuten: Southwest Georgia is a pretty rural area, but even with that, we have some beautiful river streams, and beautiful lakes, and you really cannot go a few yards without finding a bottle, a bag, a cap, just a tremendous amount of trash. We're two hours from the Gulf, a beautiful area, beautiful beaches. I remember my son Jack, he was probably two years old, and he was sitting, playing in the sand. We were all the family out, and looked over, and he's chewing on, we didn't know exactly what it was. We went over to him, and there's an old bottle cap. The cap was probably 10 or 15 years old, deep down in the sand. That was really a good validation to what I'm doing, and what I'm trying to do.
Theresa Brady: Danimer is working on a biopolymer material that looks and feels exactly like plastic, but it's marine biodegradable, meaning, it dissolves in ocean water. Scott explains.
Scott Tuten: PHA, in general, it is consumed by microbes, and that's how it degrades. There are microbes all of the world, including in marine waters. If you have an article that accidentally gets flushed out of the river systems into the oceans, that's how most of the plastics gets into our oceans, through our river systems. The microbes in the ocean will eventually consume the PHA package, as a food source. That's really what it is. When we ferment this bacteria, we extract the PHA from the bacteria, because it is their food source. When you make an article with it, and it goes into a ditch, or your backyard, or accidentally gets into the ocean, it goes away in a pretty quick time period. It's not there in five, 10, and 20 years, for that bird to eat, or the turtle. That's what the key is. It's just not there anymore.
Theresa Brady: While we're used to plastic straws, they can be deadly to birds and sea turtles. Danimer makes a bioplastic straw that's biodegradable, and it's in stores today.
Scott Tuten: Straws are not the best thing for the environment, I think we all realize that. Our PHA straw will help with that straw fight, meaning that if it does get flushed into that waterway, and does go out to the ocean, it will go away within six months. We prevent that straw from staying out there for five, 10, or 30 years, from my kid putting it in his mouth, or that bird trying to eat it as a food source. We can help with that straw battle.
Theresa Brady: Whether it's a drinking straw, water bottle, a candy wrapper, or any one of the many plastic products we use every day, Scott says bioplastics aren't just good for the environment, they're good business.
Scott Tuten: I think in general, people realize we have to do better. We cannot continue going down the path, and what this earth and this world can withstand. Do we have 50 years or 1,000 years? There's some point where we can't turn it back. When is that? Nobody knows. That's the question. We can do better. Even the big guys, Pepsi, and the Nestle's, they see it, and they're doing wonderful things. There are solutions to this problem, and they're taking this step to do it, and the consumers are too. They're demanding it, and when you demand it, things change.
Theresa Brady: Another company, Virent, of Wisconsin, is developing a plant-based plastic made from sugar cane, sugar beets, and corn.
Andrew Held: I am Andrew Held. I'm the vice president of engineering and business operations here at Virent, and we are a wholly owned subsidiary of Marathon Petroleum Corporation.
Theresa Brady: Virent is commercializing technology to make products, including plastic, from renewable resources such as biomass and crops.
Andrew Held: By using Virent's technology, and converting renewable feed stocks into these final products, you end up with the same overall characteristics. Virent is actually well down the path of working with partners, using our product materials as feed stock chemicals for renewable plastics of all kinds. These materials get used in fibers, films, in packaging materials like bottles, as well as can be used in things like engineering plastics. All these attributes are the same, in terms of what the marketplace has already worked on and developed to date. The same durability, the same performance in all kinds of critical applications. What we're doing is, we're making these from renewable feed stocks, and in fact, now these materials are made from renewable carbon, created recently by nature.
Theresa Brady: Andrew says the market is ripe for bioplastics.
Andrew Held: The overall product markets for bioplastics are very attractive. With our strategic partners, as well as looking at the marketplace more broadly, there's a lot of activity in this space. There are a lot of people pursuing a variety of options. For example, in Virent's case, we've done a lot of work with several key strategic partners, one of them being Coca-Cola.
In 2011, we started a collaboration research project with them, where we turned our product into something that they could use, and worked with their own supply chain partners to then make a 100% renewable plastic bottle that they've demonstrated in more than one setting. That work with Coca-Cola continues. They continue to look for attractive options, to try and commercialize and launch brands using this type of technology and product.
Theresa Brady: Virent's bioplastics are part of what many people call the circular economy, with less waste, more recycling, and more products designed to reverse climate change.
Andrew Held: As we look at the circular economy, clearly things like reduce, reuse, and recycle need to continue, and even improve. As Virent, one of our main contributions is increasing the renewable content that goes into these same strategies, for an overall circular economy.
Theresa Brady: Virent is acutely aware that the types of materials that go into the circular economy will have a substantial impact on its effectiveness.
Andrew Held: That's deliberately one of the things that parties check for, and why they're interested in our renewable content. When they make their products, and as they work hard with their own supply chain partners and others, in terms of getting recycled content back, to meet their own goals for sustainability and increasing recycled content, our renewable content fully integrates with those recycling chains.
Theresa Brady: Bioplastics have an added advantage.
Andrew Held: One key advantage of these bio product materials is that they're made from renewable feed stocks. When we do that, we are able to decrease the carbon intensity, the overall greenhouse gas emissions for such materials.
Theresa Brady: When we come back from a break, we'll hear from a researcher who's doing groundbreaking work on microbes that can eat plastic waste, and we'll talk with an artist about the creative way he's bringing attention to the plastic waste problem.
As we head into the winter months, Bio is preparing for some great events in 2023. Visit bio.org/events to find out more. Don't forget to check out bio.news. Bio.news is a daily news website exploring the intersection of biotech innovation and US and international policy. Visit now by typing bio.news into your browser.
Dr. Tae Seok Mo...: The plastics were invented to last almost forever. My parents' generations want to have something that last long, to save money. Over the several decades, the plastic waste accumulation is so huge that we should act now. If not, there would be no future for our next generations, including my own daughter.
Theresa Brady: Today, we also talk with Dr. Tae Seok Moon, an associate professor of energy, environmental, and chemical engineering at Washington University, in St. Louis, Missouri. He is also founder and head of the scientific advisory Board of Moonshot Bio. Dr. Moon's research is focused on using science to solve global problems.
Dr. Tae Seok Mo...: I have been working on the waste issue and its technological solution for more than a decade. My initial interest was in nicodin, the waste from piping processes, and cell logic fuel production processes. Several years ago, we shifted our focus to plastic issues, because we saw our accumulated or established technology is relevant and applicable to soil plastic waste issues.
Theresa Brady: Microbes are nature's garbage disposal, producing enzymes that break down organic material. In 2016, scientists in Japan discovered a naturally occurring microbe that's developed a taste for plastic. That's the good news. The bad news? It takes far too long to break it down. Dr. Moon explains that biotechnology could deliver a solution.
Dr. Tae Seok Mo...: In landfills, there are native bacteria which might degrade plastic waste. However, the entire process needs several months if you rely on this native bacteria. The bacteria happen to be there, or in most cases, the plastic eating bacteria is probably not there. We are developing microbes that potentially generate enzymes that are functional at normal temperatures. Using our magic bacterium, they're generating enzymes and degrading those plastics into small molecules. Then, bacterium take off that new material that grow, and degrade into value added chemicals potentially, and at the same time, clean up our environment. To do so, we need to have an enzyme that is working at just normal temperature, room temperature, and that is actually one of the challenges we tried to address at this moment.
Theresa Brady: Dr. Moon is also taking aim at the economics of the proposition. As he explains, the process needs to yield high value byproducts to be cost effective.
Dr. Tae Seok Mo...: We should engineer bacteria that have the ability to convert plastic into high value chemical, but native bacteria cannot do so. That requires an engineering effort by adding some new genes into the bacteria, modifying some genes in bacteria, and in that way, tailored bacteria that specializes in converting plastic into high value chemicals.
Theresa Brady: If these newly created microbes are so powerful, they can break down plastic. Is there a risk they might evolve into something we can't control? Dr. Moon says genetically engineered microbes are still in the research phase. They won't be used in landfills until they're approved by regulatory agencies, and until researchers know they can turn off certain traits, or engineer the microbes to self-destruct after their job is done.
Dr. Tae Seok Mo...: That is one of the challenges, when it comes to environmental application of engineered bacteria. We do not know what types of consequences will occur when those bacteria release into the environment. Currently, my lab is basically working on the project to understand what type of mutation scenario would occur when we potentially deploy bacteria into the environment. We are currently working on that experiment, not merely deploying the bacteria into the environment. We are currently engineering plastic eating bacteria equipped with a so-called kill switch. The bacteria would clean up by eating microplastic in the environment. Once all the nearby plastic particles are gone, the microbe could activate the so-called kill switch to self destruct, and to ensure bio containment.
Theresa Brady: We are all trying in our own ways to mitigate the plastics problem, whether it is researching scientific discoveries, limiting our use of plastics, or raising awareness.
Ben Lear: I am Ben Lear. I am a filmmaker and musician.
Theresa Brady: Ben found his own way to create change. He wrote a folk opera entitled "Lillian," about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a large area of floating debris in the Northern Pacific Ocean. Ben talks with us about what led him to write the musical.
Speaker 7: (Singing).
Ben Lear: When I was in college, around 2009, I remember my mom sending me an article about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Without seeing it firsthand, it sounded like this mystical island in the middle of nowhere that is just mountains of trash that people had thrown away over the course of their lives, and had gathered into this swirling mass. Of course, it struck me as tragic, and predictable honestly, when I thought about it, but it also inspired me creatively.
Speaker 7: (Singing).
Ben Lear: Everything flows out into the ocean eventually, including the plastic waste that we throw away and don't think twice about. Just because something's out of sight and out of mind doesn't mean it stops existing. Instead, it's carried by the tides deeper into the ocean, collecting in these gyres that are swirling plastic, breaking it down into smaller and smaller pieces that are digestible by fish and other marine life. Just because things can be broken down into smaller and smaller pieces doesn't mean they ever go away. Eventually, they become so small we can hardly even see them, but they're still big enough to harm the natural world. We've gotten ourselves into a hell of a conundrum.
I was motivated to write my folk opera, "Lillian," after learning about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. I came up with this idea about a guy who decides that everything he's ever lost in his life is out in the garbage patch, and he has to go on a scuba diving adventure to get it. It's fun, it's whimsical, but it also happens to speak to the problem of plastic pollution.
Theresa Brady: Ben says the purpose of the musical is to raise awareness, and educate the next generation about the need to do better by reducing our dependence on single use plastic.
Ben Lear: Everyone who has come across "Lillian" the album, which is on Spotify, for anyone who's interested, has discovered through the music the issue of plastic pollution. A lot of these people had never heard of it before. I think it created the same reaction that it created in me at first, which was outrage, and sadness.
I've heard from countless people who've listened to the music and became motivated to tell others about this issue, and try to curb their own use of single use plastics. Two years after the album came out, a teacher at a small school in northern Vermont reached out to me, and asked if he could put the show on as his high school's musical. I sent him the music, he ended up teaching it to the entire band, and the orchestra at the school, and they partnered with the science program. That entire semester, the kids in science class learned about plastic pollution, and the kids in the music program prepared the musical. At the end of the year, there was this great, huge concert where they performed the album, and also created these incredible plastic sculptures out of used, recycled, plastic bottles. It was just a beautiful case study for using art to educate, and raise awareness in schools.
Speaker 10: (Singing).
Theresa Brady: While scientists like Dr. Moon, and innovative companies like Virent and Danimer are working on technologies with the potential to shrink the mountains and floating islands of plastic trash, Ben says it's ultimately up to all of us to make better choices.
Ben Lear: While scientists are out there working on solutions, the choices that we make as individuals are crucial as well. I think the choices that we make as individuals are almost just as important. If each of us takes one small action towards reducing plastic waste, imagine the outcome on a larger scale.
Theresa Brady: I want to thank Dr. Moon, Andrew, Scott, and Ben for talking about solutions to this massive problem, from tiny microbes to bioplastics, to raising awareness through art. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and/or review this podcast, and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn @IAmBiotech, and subscribe to good day bio at bio.org/goodday. This episode was developed by executive producer Theresa Brady, and producers Lynne Finnerty and Rob Gutnikoff. It featured music by Ben Lear, and was engineered and mixed by Jay Goodman, with theme music created by Luke Smith and Sam Brady.