Organized in partnership with Just One Giant Lab (JOGL), each team is the representation of a country, region or community that will be in charge of developing a proposal plan for the implementation of a frugal biofoundry for a specific purpose.
An setup of bio foundries in 3 regions to serve bio enthusiasts, and eventually general citizens to degrade PET plastics faster and collectively.
by Németh Dávid, JK Chan
Problem
"Plastics are great in many ways, but the main problem with plastic is our current usage is not sustainable. Oil reservoirs are used as raw material and source of energy to produce plastic. Yet big amount of the plastic production is discarded rapidly. On the other hand, the total mass of plastic waste in landfills and in natural habitats are increasing sharply for example in ocean will be more than fish by year 2050.
The leaching of chemicals from plastic products to soil and water resources can threat wildlife and humans. Leaving plastics can make physical problems for wildlife resulting from ingestion or entanglement in plastic. Therefore, every living creature is impacted by the problem especially Sushi lovers!
Environmentalists can collect plastic bags at beaches, but what happens next? Most current PET recycle technologies (mechanically or chemically) could only down-cycle PET, because the product (e.g., pellet) will lose the original physical properties like strength, thermo-durability compared to virgin PET from crude oil."
Solution
Explanation
"Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is one of the major plastics. PET can degrade into its monomers and re-polymerize into PET fibre by using enzyme called PETase and other accompanying enzyme. In molecular level, there is no difference to a Virgin PET. We want to establish a decentralized PET plastic degradation system, that serves as an anti-thesis to expensive capital expenditure (e.g., recycle factories) that only rich countries can afford."
Read more about it here
