Although an passing useful material , plastic is an environmental disaster . It clogs up landfill , it litters our oceans and it can be harmful to various organisms . Developing biodegradable plastics that can be produce in a workable and sustainable manner has proved hard in the past . But all may not be lost as scientists at Stanford University have teamed up with a start - up company call Mango Materials in order todevelop a techniqueto produce a biodegradable plastic in an environmentally well-disposed means ; from waste methane .
Polyhydroxyalkanoates(PHAs ) are a family of biodegradable plastics that are produced course by some species of bacteria as anenergy or carbon paper storagematerial through the fermentation of moolah . former attempt to market this process have involved genetically modify organisms that are typically provided withplant - derived sugarsas the input . However , this is n’t particularly sustainable given that it is claim aside from the human food supply and requires kingdom to grow the crops .
Thenew systemdeveloped by Mango Materials is implausibly green ; it use non - genetically modified bacterium that are capable of using the greenhouse throttle methane and oxygen ( plus a few other nutrient ) to produce PHAs . surprisingly , the plastics can be degraded anaerobically in a process that produces methane- this methane can then be fed back into the organisation to produce more PHA . Neat .
The squad is presently tweaking the system by adding different compounds into the mix which change the property of the plastics produced , which could result in cloth with a full range of industrial diligence . “ We are currently focused on applications where biodegradability is key , ” says Molly Morse , chief operating officer at Mango Materials , in anews - vent . “ However , we ’re unresolved to all sorts of software and are eager to bring PHA bioplastics to market . ”
The system has legion added benefit over other technique . Waste methane is dramatically cheaper than sugar , and so is using wild bacteria rather than GM bacterium . The best feature of the system is perhaps the fact that using a glasshouse gas is environmentally friendly . A lot of methane goes to waste , for example from landfill and wastewater treatment plants . This system could encourage methane capture in facility such as these , which would reduce methane emission . According to Mango Materials , if the idle , vented methane from landfills in California was used to create PHA , over 100 million pounds per class of plastic could potentially be get .
Although the system is n’t ready to be used on a commercial scale yet , lab trial have demonstrated impressive yields and other study have picture that the bacteria grow at similar charge per unit on pure methane and waste biogas .
