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Development of Plastic Degrading Algae
Summary
Scientists engineered a common algae to break down plastic, aiming to create a natural, low-cost way to clean up plastic waste instead of relying on landfills or incineration. This matters because plastic pollution breaks down into microplastics that end up in our water, food, and even our bodies, so finding biological tools to reduce plastic waste could help limit our long-term exposure. The research is still early-stage—done in lab dishes, not the real world—so more work is needed before this could be used on actual plastic pollution.
Plastic pollution is a growing environmental crisis with long-lasting impacts on ecosystems, wildlife, and human health. With traditional plastic disposal plans being proven insufficient and great need for an innovative solution has occurred. The goal of this research project is to develop plastic-degrading algae that offer a biological approach to reducing environmental plastic waste. To achieve this, we introduced DNA into Chlorella vulgaris algae cells using electroporation. We then took our best growth and screened for clones to test the DNA of our algae and make more. From there, we were able to add our algae and BG-11 media into petri dishes with plastic to test our degradation percentage. Future research will focus on increasing degradation efficiency and testing real-world conditions.