Scientists Turn Plastic Waste Into Edible Cookies (futurism.com)
- Reference: 0185290742
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/08/30/0456255/scientists-turn-plastic-waste-into-edible-cookies
- Source link: https://futurism.com/future-society/plastic-waste-edible-cookies
> The yeast breaks down the components of plastic compounds and agricultural byproducts like discarded plant stalks into proteins, fats, acids, and flavorings that we can eat. When these are combined together, the mixture is fed into a 3D printer that spits out cookies of any desired shape. The researchers chose to print their cookies as the Greek letter Â, creating what they call "ÂBites" — or micro bites. They haven't actually eaten one of their ÂBites yet, as they wait for university approval... "I think it has a pleasant, appealing aroma," Lahiru Jayakody, a microbiologist at SIU who led the research, [2]told NewScientist . "And it will taste good, too. We've not tasted it, but it smells good — that's for sure — like a real cookie...."
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> The researchers used CRISPR gene-editing technology to reprogram yeast strains to eat polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a widely used form of plastic commonly found in disposable water bottles, food packaging, and clothes, which is rich with carbon. Before the yeast can start feasting, the PET plastics are subjected to a process called oxidative hydrothermal dissolution to break them down into smaller bits that the microbes can digest. The purported advantage of this approach is that it's environmentally friendly, using only heat, water, and oxygen. The yeast feasts on these stripped-down plastic bits, turning them into a slurry of proteins, fats, and acids that're combined with fiber, starch, and sweetener to make them more palatable. One of the yeast strains in particular was able to turn plant biomass into tasty vanilla flavorings...
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> [R]ight now, it's an expensive process, costing around $60 to produce a kilogram of cookies, [3]The Guardian reported . And some experts say it's wishful thinking to believe we can 3D-print, and then eat, ourselves out of these global problems with 3D-printed, delectable treats. "We produce 400 million tons a year of plastic waste. You're not going to turn it all into cookies," Jason Hallett at Imperial College London [4]told New Scientist . "So it's not a solution to the plastic-waste crisis. There's no way you could do this commercially. We're not gonna be eating plastic cookies."
Thanks to Slashdot reader [5]fjo3 for sharing the article.
[1] https://futurism.com/future-society/plastic-waste-edible-cookies
[2] https://www.newscientist.com/article/2585463-plastic-bottles-can-be-turned-into-edible-vanilla-flavour-cookies/
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/food/2026/aug/24/cookies-plastic-astronauts-space-food
[4] https://www.newscientist.com/article/2585463-plastic-bottles-can-be-turned-into-edible-vanilla-flavour-cookies/
[5] https://www.slashdot.org/~fjo3
Cheap livestock feed (Score:2)
If they get the cost out of it, it'll be used in the food chain everywhere it saves money to do so.
Re: (Score:2)
You should be eating the plants directly vs. converting an animal into human food which is inefficient and environmentally destructive.
Re: (Score:1)
Your very existence is inefficient and environmentally destructive.
That you choose to continue your existence while chastising others tells me that you are a hypocrite or an idiot, but probably both.
Eat what you like. What others eat is not your decision to make.
Re: (Score:2)
You can keep your efilism and I don't recall deciding anyone else' diet or telling anyone else what to eat.
Mad Chicken Disease Inbound (Score:2)
Might get some mad cow too.
Knock me over with a feather (Score:4)
A plastic recycling process that is to expensive to be practical? How novel, it's almost like every plastic recycling process is too expensive to use, has been since the beginning, and the plastic industry knew this would be the case from the start.
No conspiracy needed. just capitalism (Score:3)
In the quest for greater efficiency, you will always find solutions that are cheaper to produce than clean up and it takes resources to search for both, except creation is an internal cost and disposal an external cost... That is before you think up any evil motives to add or hire an MBA who's trained to do so.
A yeast feast? (Score:3)
"The yeast feasts on these stripped-down plastic bits..." I hope at least the yeast doesn't turn into a beast, or my fears would be increased...
A MOLD? with spores? (Score:2)
Why do we have to pick organisms that are the most durable and easily spread?? Does it breed with other molds?? Like how they infected nature with bio-engineered non-sterile plants?
That PET bottle in the ocean becomes food but the storage containers for food/medical or components in my devices that I would like to last many years, if not possibly a lifetime or two... can now rust away? One of the huge benefits and reasons for plastics is their longevity!
What's next? PE? Polyethylene? AKA the FOAMs insult
Re: (Score:1)
So... a yeast that can digest plastic. Cool!... until it morphs into airborne spores and gets into homes.
You go to bed after letting the cat out, and in the morning you wake up to a lake in the kitchen along with the smell of rotting food... you had a gallon of milk, couple two-liters of pop, lunch meat and leftovers in Tupperware, all the plastic is gone (including the door seals); your TV is just the metal skeleton now, your basement is an ocean (water lines are PEX)... et cetera.
If only there was a way
Re: (Score:2)
It's too bad the crowd that will totally agree with RFK Jr about every bad thing regarding microplastics will at the same cheer on the destruction of green energy projects and think climate change isn't a problem to be concerned about.
Meanwhile one of the largest factors in plastic bottles is their weight and therefore lower transport costs. Glass bottles are just too heavy when you burn dinosaur juice to move them. Aluminum helps but you also have to burn a fuckload of that same juice to make the energy
Cookies made from waste? (Score:2)
Shut up and take my money!
Foodini 2.0 (Score:2)
New and improved, printing cookies from shit.
Re: (Score:2)
> printing cookies from shit.
I have some bad news for you about how farmers fertilize the plants you eat...
I suspect they mean mu (Score:2)
A-hat isn't a Greek letter, and unless they meant Angstrom, it cannot be interpreted as micro.
New Trump mantra: (Score:2)
"Let them eat plastic."
Missing the point (Score:2)
> "We produce 400 million tons a year of plastic waste. You're not going to turn it all into cookies," Jason Hallett at Imperial College London told New Scientist. "So it's not a solution to the plastic-waste crisis. There's no way you could do this commercially. We're not gonna be eating plastic cookies."
This completely misses the point. There are significant problems with the toxicity of plastic waste not only in the human food chain but in the biosphere in general. If the plastic can really be turned into something benign enough to eat and that doesn’t contain any microplastics, that could be used for a lot of things besides cookies, anywhere from livestock feed to restoring some of the soil biomass lost to erosion via crude agricultural and forestry practices in the past. The primary issue besides
Re: (Score:2)
I should add that existing “plastic recycling” methods are for the most part completely inadequate; the plastic can usually be recycled into something useful only a very limited number of times before it gets turned into something useful only kind of fuel and burned or alternatively buried in a landfill. Neither of these is sustainable in the long term.
Re: (Score:2)
Grrr stupid tablet dropped part of my post.
Most plastic recycling can yield anything useful only a limited number of times before the only thing left is for it to get turned into some kind of fuel and burned.
Any cookie good cookie!! (Score:2, Funny)
Me love cookie!!!! OM NOM NOM nom