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 in fact there are
two islands of floating plastic waste
twice the size of Texas in our oceans
right now despite our best efforts only
9% of all plastic we use winds up being
recycled and even worse plastic is
incredibly tough and durable and
researchers estimate that it can take
anywhere from five hundred to five
thousand years to fully break down now
this plastic doesn’t just sit in our
oceans and landfills like a harmless
eyesore no instead it leeches harmful
chemical contaminants into our oceans
our soil our food our water and into us
so how did we wind up with so much
plastic waste well it’s simple plastic
is cheap durable adaptable and it’s
everywhere if you look around you you’ll
find plastic is in most things from this
microphone to this projection screen
plastic is everywhere but the good news
is is there something else that’s cheap
durable adaptable and everywhere and my
research shows it may even be able to
help us with our plastic pollution
problem I’m talking about bacteria
bacteria are microscopic living beings
invisible to the naked eye that live
everywhere and all sorts of diverse and
extreme environments from the human gut
to soil to skin
two vents in the ocean floor reaching
temperatures of 700 degrees Fahrenheit
bacteria live everywhere in all sorts of
diverse and extreme environments and as
such they have to get pretty creative
with their food sources there’s also a
lot of them researchers estimate that
there are roughly 5 million trillion
trillion that’s a 5 with 30 zeros after
it bacteria on the planet now
considering that we humans produce 300
million tons of new plastic each year
and go through about 10 billion plastic
bags per day I’d say that our plastic
numbers are looking pretty comparable to
bacterias so after noticing this and
after learning about all of the creative
ways that bacteria find food I started
to think could bacteria and plastic
polluted environments have figured out
how to use plastic for food well this is
the question that I decided to pursue a
couple years ago now fortunately for me
I’m from one of the most polluted cities
in America Houston Texas and my hometown
alone there are seven EPA designated
Superfund sites these are sites that are
so polluted that the government has
deemed their cleanup a national priority
so I decided to trek around to these
sites and collect soil samples teeming
with bacteria I also collected some
samples from the beautiful brown waters
of Galveston Bay Texas
the plastic polluted Beach of my
childhood and after employing some
creative methods let’s say of getting
these bacteria on a plane and back to
Portland I got to work I started toying
with a protocol which is fancy science
talk for a recipe and what I was trying
to cook up was a carbon-free media or a
food
environments an environment without the
usual carbons or food that bacteria like
us humans need to live now in this
environment I would provide my bacteria
with the sole carbon or food source I
would feed my bacteria polyethylene
terephthalate or PE t plastic PE t
plastic is the most widely produced
plastic in the world it’s used in all
sorts of food and drink containers with
the most notorious example being plastic
water bottles of which we humans
currently go through at a rate of 1
million per minute so what I would be
doing is essentially putting my bacteria
on a forced diet of PE T plastic and
saying which if any might survive or
hopefully thrive see this type of
experiment would act as a screen for
bacteria that had adapted to their
plastic polluted environment and evolved
the incredibly cool ability to eat PE T
plastic and using this screen I was able
to find some bacteria that had done just
that
these bacteria had figured out how to
eat PE T plastic so how do these
bacteria do this well it’s actually
pretty simple just as we humans digest
carbon or food and two chunks of sugar
that we then use for energy so to to my
bacteria my bacteria however have
figured out how to do this digestion
process two big tough durable PE T
plastic now to do this my bacteria use a
special version of what’s called an
enzyme now enzymes are simply compounds
that exist in all living things there
are many different types of enzymes but
basically they make processes go forward
such as the digestion of food and to
energy for instance we humans have an
enzyme called an amylase that helps us
digest complex starches such as bread
into small chunks of sugar that we can
then use for energy
now my bacteria have a special enzyme
called a lipase that binds to big tough
durable PE T plastic and helps break it
into small chunks of sugar that my
bacteria can then use for energy
so basically PE T plastic goes from
being a big tough long-lasting pollutant
to a tasty meal for my bacteria sounds
pretty cool right and I think given the
current scope of our plastic pollution
problem I think it sounds pretty useful
the statistics I shared with you on just
how much plastic waste has accumulated
on our planet are daunting they’re scary
and I think they highlight that while
reducing reusing and recycling are
important they alone are not going to be
enough to solve this problem and this is
where I think bacteria might be able to
help us out but I do understand why the
concept of bacterial help might make
some people a little nervous
after all if plastic is everywhere and
these bacteria eat plastic isn’t there a
risk of these bacteria getting out in
the environment and wreaking havoc well
the short answer is no and I’ll tell you
why these bacteria are already in the
environment the bacteria and my research
are not genetically modified Franken
bugs these are naturally occurring
bacteria that have simply adapted to
their plastic polluted environment and
evolved the incredibly gnarly ability to
eat PE T plastic so the process of
bacteria eating plastic is actually a
natural one but it’s an incredibly slow
process and there remains a lot of work
to be done to figure out how to speed up
this process to a useful pace my
research is currently looking at ways of
doing this through a series of UV or
ultraviolet pretreatments which
basically means we blast PE
stick with sunlight we do this because
sunlight acts a bit like tenderizer on a
steak turning the big tough durable
bonds and P et plastic a bit softer a
bit easier for my bacteria to chew on
ultimately when my research hopes to do
is create an industrial scale contained
carbon free system similar to a compost
heap where these bacteria can thrive in
a contained system where their sole food
source is PE t plastic waste imagine it
one day being able to dispose of all of
your plastic waste in a bin at the curb
that you knew was bound for a dedicated
bacteria powered plastic waste facility
I think with some hard work this is an
achievable reality plastic eating
bacteria is not a cure-all but given the
current statistics it’s clear that we
humans we could use a little help with
this problem because people we possess a
pressing problem of plastic pollution
and bacteria might be a really important
part of the solution thank you [Applause]
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 in fact there are
two islands of floating plastic waste
twice the size of Texas in our oceans
right now despite our best efforts only
9% of all plastic we use winds up being
recycled and even worse plastic is
incredibly tough and durable and
researchers estimate that it can take
anywhere from five hundred to five
thousand years to fully break down now
this plastic doesn’t just sit in our
oceans and landfills like a harmless
eyesore no instead it leeches harmful
chemical contaminants into our oceans
our soil our food our water and into us
so how did we wind up with so much
plastic waste well it’s simple plastic
is cheap durable adaptable and it’s
everywhere if you look around you you’ll
find plastic is in most things from this
microphone to this projection screen
plastic is everywhere but the good news
is is there something else that’s cheap
durable adaptable and everywhere and my
research shows it may even be able to
help us with our plastic pollution
problem I’m talking about bacteria
bacteria are microscopic living beings
invisible to the naked eye that live
everywhere and all sorts of diverse and
extreme environments from the human gut
to soil to skin
two vents in the ocean floor reaching
temperatures of 700 degrees Fahrenheit
bacteria live everywhere in all sorts of
diverse and extreme environments and as
such they have to get pretty creative
with their food sources there’s also a
lot of them researchers estimate that
there are roughly 5 million trillion
trillion that’s a 5 with 30 zeros after
it bacteria on the planet now
considering that we humans produce 300
million tons of new plastic each year
and go through about 10 billion plastic
bags per day I’d say that our plastic
numbers are looking pretty comparable to
bacterias so after noticing this and
after learning about all of the creative
ways that bacteria find food I started
to think could bacteria and plastic
polluted environments have figured out
how to use plastic for food well this is
the question that I decided to pursue a
couple years ago now fortunately for me
I’m from one of the most polluted cities
in America Houston Texas and my hometown
alone there are seven EPA designated
Superfund sites these are sites that are
so polluted that the government has
deemed their cleanup a national priority
so I decided to trek around to these
sites and collect soil samples teeming
with bacteria I also collected some
samples from the beautiful brown waters
of Galveston Bay Texas
the plastic polluted Beach of my
childhood and after employing some
creative methods let’s say of getting
these bacteria on a plane and back to
Portland I got to work I started toying
with a protocol which is fancy science
talk for a recipe and what I was trying
to cook up was a carbon-free media or a
food
environments an environment without the
usual carbons or food that bacteria like
us humans need to live now in this
environment I would provide my bacteria
with the sole carbon or food source I
would feed my bacteria polyethylene
terephthalate or PE t plastic PE t
plastic is the most widely produced
plastic in the world it’s used in all
sorts of food and drink containers with
the most notorious example being plastic
water bottles of which we humans
currently go through at a rate of 1
million per minute so what I would be
doing is essentially putting my bacteria
on a forced diet of PE T plastic and
saying which if any might survive or
hopefully thrive see this type of
experiment would act as a screen for
bacteria that had adapted to their
plastic polluted environment and evolved
the incredibly cool ability to eat PE T
plastic and using this screen I was able
to find some bacteria that had done just
that
these bacteria had figured out how to
eat PE T plastic so how do these
bacteria do this well it’s actually
pretty simple just as we humans digest
carbon or food and two chunks of sugar
that we then use for energy so to to my
bacteria my bacteria however have
figured out how to do this digestion
process two big tough durable PE T
plastic now to do this my bacteria use a
special version of what’s called an
enzyme now enzymes are simply compounds
that exist in all living things there
are many different types of enzymes but
basically they make processes go forward
such as the digestion of food and to
energy for instance we humans have an
enzyme called an amylase that helps us
digest complex starches such as bread
into small chunks of sugar that we can
then use for energy
now my bacteria have a special enzyme
called a lipase that binds to big tough
durable PE T plastic and helps break it
into small chunks of sugar that my
bacteria can then use for energy
so basically PE T plastic goes from
being a big tough long-lasting pollutant
to a tasty meal for my bacteria sounds
pretty cool right and I think given the
current scope of our plastic pollution
problem I think it sounds pretty useful
the statistics I shared with you on just
how much plastic waste has accumulated
on our planet are daunting they’re scary
and I think they highlight that while
reducing reusing and recycling are
important they alone are not going to be
enough to solve this problem and this is
where I think bacteria might be able to
help us out but I do understand why the
concept of bacterial help might make
some people a little nervous
after all if plastic is everywhere and
these bacteria eat plastic isn’t there a
risk of these bacteria getting out in
the environment and wreaking havoc well
the short answer is no and I’ll tell you
why these bacteria are already in the
environment the bacteria and my research
are not genetically modified Franken
bugs these are naturally occurring
bacteria that have simply adapted to
their plastic polluted environment and
evolved the incredibly gnarly ability to
eat PE T plastic so the process of
bacteria eating plastic is actually a
natural one but it’s an incredibly slow
process and there remains a lot of work
to be done to figure out how to speed up
this process to a useful pace my
research is currently looking at ways of
doing this through a series of UV or
ultraviolet pretreatments which
basically means we blast PE
stick with sunlight we do this because
sunlight acts a bit like tenderizer on a
steak turning the big tough durable
bonds and P et plastic a bit softer a
bit easier for my bacteria to chew on
ultimately when my research hopes to do
is create an industrial scale contained
carbon free system similar to a compost
heap where these bacteria can thrive in
a contained system where their sole food
source is PE t plastic waste imagine it
one day being able to dispose of all of
your plastic waste in a bin at the curb
that you knew was bound for a dedicated
bacteria powered plastic waste facility
I think with some hard work this is an
achievable reality plastic eating
bacteria is not a cure-all but given the
current statistics it’s clear that we
humans we could use a little help with
this problem because people we possess a
pressing problem of plastic pollution
and bacteria might be a really important
part of the solution thank you [Applause]
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