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Engineered yeast for converting plastic and biomass compounds to food additives

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Re: Engineered yeast for converting plastic and biomass compounds to food additives

#31

Post by axus »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #16
hkt wrote: post #8

Honestly at this point I think the way to go may be to stop using plastics where they're not absolutely required, and to subsequently burn what goes into landfill while producing electricity and reclaiming heat. Better that than this.

Burn it? With all the talk of carbon capture? Recall that plastic literally consists of a mass of hydrocarbons. Why not bury it?

I think the legitimate answer was groundwater contamination, but that should be solved for other things we bury. I'm on board for non-biodegradable plastic trash sequestration

Re: Engineered yeast for converting plastic and biomass compounds to food additives

#32

Post by tantalor »

ch4s3 wrote: post #9
spockz wrote: post #4

Maybe the only thing more worrisome than microplastics everywhere is unstoppable plastics eating organisms everywhere, eating through all plastics everywhere.

Usually these bioengineered yeasts need pretty specific growth conditions in order to eat in this case ethylene glycol, not raw finished plastic. In this case they say "plastic-derived substrates" which means they're pre-processing the waste plastic.

Of course, the lysine contingency.

Re: Engineered yeast for converting plastic and biomass compounds to food additives

#33

Post by autoexec »

> The researchers took PET plastic, discarded corn plant stalks and leaves, and other biomass and put it through a proprietary process called oxidative hydrothermal dissolution. Created by SIU Carbondale Geology Professor Ken Anderson, this method uses water and oxygen at high temperatures and pressures to break down tough material into microbe-accessible pieces. Then, those pieces are fed to the programmed yeasts, which transform them into a variety of new food ingredients, including proteins, fats and acids. Finally, the researchers add fiber, starch and sweetener to the mix and extrude it through a 3D printer, forming protein-rich cookies dubbed µBites (pronounced "microbites"). [https://phys.org/news/2026-08-yeasts-pet-plastic-crop-protei...]

It kind of sounds like they made food out of corn plant stalks and leaves and "other biomass", added fiber, starch, and sweetener, but then just polluted the product with processed waste plastic as an additive. If this really is just using trash as a filler in actual food that's pretty dystopian. I'm sure companies would happily line up to sell their industrial waste products to food companies as an additive, but I'm not seeing the appeal in this for consumers.

Re: Engineered yeast for converting plastic and biomass compounds to food additives

#34

Post by patwolf »

weaksauce wrote: post #24
spockz wrote: post #4

Maybe the only thing more worrisome than microplastics everywhere is unstoppable plastics eating organisms everywhere, eating through all plastics everywhere.

there was a time in history before fungus came along and ate trees so there were just a huge amount of trees around that couldn't decay. (which is why we have coal actually) this could be something akin to that.

I've heard that the prevailing theory now is that it wasn't the lack of fungus that made coal. Instead, the earth was covered in tropical wetlands, and trees couldn't decay in the anoxic water.

Re: Engineered yeast for converting plastic and biomass compounds to food additives

#35

Post by hkt »

Loughla wrote: post #30
hkt wrote: post #8

Honestly at this point I think the way to go may be to stop using plastics where they're not absolutely required, and to subsequently burn what goes into landfill while producing electricity and reclaiming heat. Better that than this.

How do you define 'not absolutely required'?

Easy cases might be single use plastics outside of a medical environment and anything where there isn't a substitute with adequate properties (I'd ignore economics here and let the market solve)

Ultimately a tricky thing to define though, no argument.

Re: Engineered yeast for converting plastic and biomass compounds to food additives

#36

Post by phoronixrly »

ryanisnan wrote: post #14
spockz wrote: post #4

Maybe the only thing more worrisome than microplastics everywhere is unstoppable plastics eating organisms everywhere, eating through all plastics everywhere.

Reminds me of the Taumoeba escaping the Xenonite enclosures.

Yeah, that was for plot reasons...

Re: Engineered yeast for converting plastic and biomass compounds to food additives

#37

Post by hkt »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #16
hkt wrote: post #8

Honestly at this point I think the way to go may be to stop using plastics where they're not absolutely required, and to subsequently burn what goes into landfill while producing electricity and reclaiming heat. Better that than this.

Burn it? With all the talk of carbon capture? Recall that plastic literally consists of a mass of hydrocarbons. Why not bury it?

I'd argue that if we are burning plastics we get to dodge microplastics, and we get a second use of hydrocarbons. Burn enough plastic, maybe we can displace some gas. Optimistic, I realise.

Re: Engineered yeast for converting plastic and biomass compounds to food additives

#39

Post by shevy-java »

ch4s3 wrote: post #9
spockz wrote: post #4

Maybe the only thing more worrisome than microplastics everywhere is unstoppable plastics eating organisms everywhere, eating through all plastics everywhere.

Usually these bioengineered yeasts need pretty specific growth conditions in order to eat in this case ethylene glycol, not raw finished plastic. In this case they say "plastic-derived substrates" which means they're pre-processing the waste plastic.

> bioengineered yeasts need pretty specific growth conditions

In a natural environment this will not hold. Organisms are unstable; they change all the time, simpler ones even more so. Mutants with a faster growth rate will, up to a certain maximum, take over from slower growing or growth-deficient mutants. There isn't really a compelling growth advantage for plastic-degrading organisms, which is one reason why plastic stays so long in the environment.

All pre-processing steps further add to the cost, so we will year after year hear about it - and then wonder why nothing happens and plastics keep compounding in the ocean. And this is not new either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_v._Chakrabarty

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