One can choose to leave their single-use plastic bottle on the ground, but that’s not the end of its story. Soon as the gusty winds come in, it will be off to another journey. It will be forced to travel with the wind like a line of kids, and each person is shoving the person in front to move forward. The bottle is the one that just gets caught in the system and follows where the others go. Then eventually, the wind will dive down, and the plastic bottle will be in a new location. And this process will repeat until it gets stuck in the ocean. The water will hold onto the bottle with a tight enough grip that any breezy action can’t control where it goes. Sadly, the plastic item has a far longer way to go. It soon will meet up with other litter, and then more, until they reach the island of trash. This island covers 1.6 million square kilometers in the Pacific Ocean, two times the size of Texas, and it’s just growing in size. One small action can lead to a bigger picture.
Plastic pollution has been a global problem for decades. It harms so many life forms, typically sea life. They mistake the plastic as food. One of the worst things about this is that the majority of the plastic used is non biodegradable. The trash is stuck in the animals body
forever until they die. Some animals also get stuck in plastic: six-pack rings on a turtle's shell, nets on seal's necks, and plastic bags on turtle's heads. These unfortunate events happen often and can distort their bodies when they are fully grown.
Recently, scientists have created genetically modified bacteria that can turn polyethylene terephthalate polymer[PET] into vanilla flavoring. PET plastic is usually the plastic used to create single-use bottles. The E coli bacteria breaks down the plastic to turn into the compound vanillin. The vanillin compound is used for cosmetic and food industries. About 85% is produced from chemicals of fossil fuels and the rest is from vanilla beans, but the demand is growing.
Now, scientists at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland have created a solution for the major problem, plastic pollution. Genetically modifying a bacteria to break down plastic is a great way to put another use for plastic bottles. The bottles in the ocean can still be used to be turned into vanilla flavoring. This is a sign of another chance for those plastics.
Credits:
Guardian News and Media. (2021, June 15). Scientists convert used plastic bottles into vanilla flavouring. The Guardian. from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/15/scientists-convert-used-plastic-bottles-into-vanilla-flavouring.
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