Plastic waste management is a complicated business. Most methods of recycling or breaking down plastic are costly and harmful to the environment. The most common biodegradable alternatives – like paper straws – are less than ideal replacements.
There are many approaches to creating biodegradable plastics using feedstocks like seaweed, sugarcane, and other plant matter. However, the resulting plastics often fall short compared with conventional petroleum-based plastics.
One type of bioplastic that is gaining popularity is polyhydroxyalkanoates, or PHA. PHA is a plastic produced by microorganisms. It is fully compostable or biodegradable but in other ways but looks, feels, and functions like regular plastic but without the environmental drawbacks.
PHA can be made using bacterial fermentation of a variety of feedstocks such as vegetable oils, sugars, starches, and even methane and wastewater.
Researchers at a startup from the University of Waterloo in Canada called MetaCycler BioInnovations have developed a process for producing PHA based on bacteria that has been engineered to convert waste from milk and cheese production. This solution upcycles waste from the dairy industry into cost-effective, sustainable bio-based plastics.
PHAs can be tailored to have a wide range of properties ranging from being rigid and tough to being quite flexible. Therefore, they can be suitable for many applications including packaging, agricultural films, and consumer goods.
The Waterloo technology is a way to tackle the problems of both food waste and plastic pollution with one solution.
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Turning food waste into a new bioplastic
Photo, posted December 10, 2017, courtesy of Leonard J Matthews via Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio