The idea of making cookies from recycled plastic seems both ridiculous and quite unappetizing, but researchers at Southern Illinois University may actually make it possible.
As part of a NASA-funded project aimed at creating food for the resource-limited environment of deep space, they have investigated using microbes to transform plastic waste into edible food for humans.
Scientists have long used microbes, such as yeast, as miniature factories to make a variety of molecules. For example, insulin is no longer extracted from animal pancreases. Yeast can make it instead.
The researchers used PET plastic, which is often used to make soda and water bottles. They took the PET plastic, discarded corn plant stalks and leaves, and other biomass and put it through a proprietary process called oxidative hydrothermal dissolution. The process breaks down the tough plastic into micro-accessible pieces. Then the pieces are fed to yeasts, which are programmed to reform the plastic pieces into a variety of new food ingredients, including proteins, fats, and acids. Finally, they add fiber, starch, and sweetener to the mix and extrude through a 3D printer, forming protein-rich cookies that they call microbites.
The same approach can produce vanilla flavoring, beta-carotene, and other useful food additives. It could be extremely valuable in extreme environments like submarines or lunar colonies. But useless plastic might eventually come in handy in a hungry world as well. Estimates are that 30% of the world population may be at risk of hunger in the future.
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This cookie started its life as a plastic bottle
