OneMillionAdrenalised

Traditional methods of plastic production use petroleum-based products that are non renewable. These forms of plastic materials have negative impacts on the environment. They consume landfill space and require millions of years to decay. We propose a new method to produce plastics biologically from wastewater. We chose wastewater because it is cheap, abundant, and renewable. Recent research reveals that certain bacteria used in biological treatment processes stores plastic as polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) inside their cell walls. Producing plastic from wastewater is shown to be cheaper, more energy efficient, and less polluting than producing plastic from petrochemicals. Ultimately, plastic produced from wastewater will reduce our dependence on oil and will be biodegradable.