Plastics have revolutionised our world. The invention of this malleable material has made so many of the conveniences that we take for granted today possible. Everything from toothbrushes to automotive parts and acrylic paints, the world has a plastic addiction and it is almost unimaginable how life would look without it. It is its ubiquity that raises one of plastics biggest problems. 460 million tonnes of plastic was produced last year. Due to the varying types of plastics, each with its own chemical makeup, it is difficult to recycle effectively. Many items also use a mixture of different plastic that are impossible to separate. Plastics used to store food or other contaminating products are regularly deemed unrecyclable. Another contributing factor to plastic waste is the materials non-biodegradable nature. It is simply easier and cheaper to manufacture new plastic. This means that a majority of the plastic produced today still finds its way into landfills or is incinerated.
When left in the elements plastics break up into smaller parts called microplastics that are now causing real problems. Microplastics are in our food chains and have been found in human blood, and while the effects of this are unknown, it is starting to cause disquiet amongst scientists and environmentalists.
Many startups are examining how best to develop a plastic or a recycling process that solves these issues. One small startup in their search has landed on plastic eating to speed up the plastic decomposition process. Epoch Biodesign was founded by Jacob Nathan and Douglas Kell. Kell, a Professor of systems biology at the University of Liverpool has been researching how to develop tools to engineer enzymes for specific uses. They have successfully produced enzymes that can break down plastic, the challenge for the team now is to make it scalable and economical. Epoch Biodesign is heavily focusing on plastics that are currently unrecyclable such as cling film, hard plastic packaging and composite plastics. Epoch’s invention has the potential to make recycling profitable and cut carbon emissions that result from the industry.
The company has started to attract more investment for venture capitalists. Recently they received $11 million in seed funding which they say will go toward further development and scale up of their solution as well as the construction of new R&D facilities.
Epoch Biodesign is part of a burgeoning industry of synthetic biology. These redesigned organisms can be used for all kinds of applications from plastic recycling, food production to creating new materials or medical devices. Investment in the sector is growing, in 2020 over $4 billion were invested into the sector with much of it coming form the Silicon Valley tech companies. It seems that the tech founders are interested in synthetic biology because it represents a new frontier.
