We can't find the internet
Attempting to reconnect
Something went wrong!
Hang in there while we get back on track
Plastic Eating Algae Project
Summary
Scientists engineered algae to carry genes for plastic-eating enzymes, successfully creating algae clones that break down plastic. This matters because plastic pollution doesn't just harm wildlife—it breaks down into microplastics that end up in our water, food, and eventually our bodies, so finding ways to clean up plastic waste could reduce our long-term exposure. While this research is still early-stage, it points toward a promising, low-cost tool for tackling plastic pollution at its source.
The central issue we are trying to solve through our research project is the problem of plastic pollution and how it affects our ecosystem. Plastic has become so present in our ecosystems that we tend to forget it's there, but in reality, it is poisoning our wildlife and disrupting entire ecosystems. We are trying to fix this problem by introducing plastic-eating enzymes to our algae clones, Chlorella, through Agrobacterium transformation. After introducing the DNA, we cloned and then screened the algae that continued to grow to ensure that they had the DNA of the plastic-eating enzyme. We then went on to actually test to see if the algae was degrading plastic, which we compared to our control group of wild-type algae degradation of plastic. We had lots of clones that grew, and they contained the positive DNA samples. The impact of this research could lead us to actually introduce the plastic-eating algae into the world to help us reduce the amount of plastic pollution.