In 2012, students from Yale University discovered a rare species of mushroom - the Pestalotiopsis microspora - that can ‘eat’ plastic. The group are always looking to start chapters in new countries. When the ‘brick’ is full, it can be dropped off at a local Ecobrick Exchanges in England, US, and Wales - and used to make everything from furniture to garden walls.

You don’t need a PhD in biochemistry to build an ‘eco brick.’ Last year, the ‘eco-brick’ trend - which involves filling plastic bottles with non-recyclable plastic and sending them off to be used in construction - went viral on TikTok. Given that people use more than 37,000 tonnes of vanilin per year, it’s a significant breakthrough - and proves that recycled plastic could find new life on the industrial chemical market. Plastic bottles can be converted into vanilla flavouring using heated bacteria, a 2021 study reveals.īy adding E.coli to plastic, scientists could make vanillin, a compound found in vanilla beans. Scientists have successfully formed this gel into cups and plates - just maybe don’t think about where the crockery came from when you’re eating off it. The researchers isolated two short strands of DNA from the sperm, binding them together with a chemical from vegetable oil.įrom here the gel was moulded into different shapes and freeze-dried to remove the moisture, which makes it solidify. It might sound slightly fishy, but Chinese scientists have constructed an eco-friendly plastic from salmon sperm.

The superworms devouring polystyrene University of Queensland Plastic made from fish sperm

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