果冻影院

Scientists from different disciplines at 果冻影院 have combined forces to address the problem of plastic waste with help from behavioural science, chemistry, and hundreds of compost heaps.

What action can I take?

Take part in .

Pledge to take this action via the 'thumb up' icon听- in the 'Pledge your action' box听to the right (desktop) or below (mobile).听

Inspire others by sharing this page and/or your pledge on social media. Use听#果冻影院GenerationOne #COP26 #Climate果冻影院 @果冻影院 @Sustainable果冻影院.

---

听

Unfortunately, the answer right now to how bacteria can help address plastic pollution is 鈥渟lowly鈥�. Most plastics are designed to be durable, which means they are hard to break down or convert into smaller and different pieces. That鈥檚 good news while the plastics are being used, typically to protect and package food, drinks, and other goods. But it becomes a real problem the moment those plastics reach the end of their useful life. Which for some single-use plastics can be very quickly indeed.听

In recent years, a possible solution has emerged: compostable plastics. In theory, these materials can be made in a way that encourages more rapid breakdown by bacteria into harmless components. But to work, these compostable plastics must be disposed of properly. However, does this extra level of complexity put people off? And if so, could that derail efforts to deal with growing mountains of plastic waste?

Ay艧e Allison, who is studying for a PhD in behavioural science at 果冻影院, is working to find out. As part of a project run through the 果冻影院 Plastic Waste Innovation Hub and 果冻影院 Centre for Behaviour Change, Allison is asking people what affects their decisions to buy or avoid biodegradable and compostable plastic packaging.听 She says:
听

鈥淥ur work is helping us understand citizen behaviours that contribute to plastic and food waste.鈥�

Her research showed that four out of five people said they would buy products with packaging marked 鈥榗ompostable鈥� or 鈥榖iodegradable鈥�. But it also revealed how some were put off by confusing terminology and lack of detail on how to dispose of packaging. The study also showed many people did not know how to dispose of the compostable plastics properly. One respondent said: 鈥淚t needs to be made clearer if hot composting [a technique that uses higher temperatures to speed up microbial activity] is required.鈥澨�

Plastic persuasion听

鈥淥ne implication of the findings is that knowledge on its own is not effective. So, just giving people information, raising awareness, educational campaigns, and social marketing isn't going to be enough.鈥�

What would work better? 鈥淵ou could use much more persuasive techniques,鈥� she says. One example could be to make people associate the proper disposal of packaging with positive feelings, perhaps by making clear that other people are doing the same. In other words, those people who do the right thing could help by simply talking to their friends about it. But that won鈥檛 be enough either, she says, unless people are offered reliable and accessible waste collection services. 听

How much will the right behaviour help? Getting the compostable plastic to a compost heap is a good start, but unfortunately, it鈥檚 rarely the end of the story. Other research in the 果冻影院 Plastic Waste Innovation Hub shows that some so-called 鈥榞reen plastics鈥� are much less compostable than others.听

Taking a citizen-science approach, the hub has signed some 10,000 people to the鈥疊ig Compost Experiment, to see how long packaging labelled as 鈥渂iodegradable鈥� and 鈥渃ompostable鈥� take to degrade in a household composter. Initial analysis shows that after eighteen months, biodegradable packaging was still visible in two out of three compost bins.听

Wicked problem听

While compostable materials could help, the problem of plastic waste must be addressed in various ways, says Professor Mark Miodownik, a 果冻影院 materials scientist who helped to set up the hub. 鈥淧lastic waste is not something that will be solved by any one discipline or by any one solution. It鈥檚 a so-called wicked problem that affects so many different systems and people and the way they behave.

鈥淪o, we realized that we at 果冻影院 should get together and start a hub where different disciplines can work together to solve it, or at least contribute to the solutions.鈥澨�

What kind of solutions? They don鈥檛 need to be technical, Miodownik says. 鈥淭he problem isn鈥檛 always about trying to redesign the material,鈥� he explains. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a systems problem, how do you make sure that plastic bottles at the end of their life end up being collected, recycled and made into new bottles.鈥澨�

One answer to that is not to make them green, or brown, or indeed any colour. 鈥淭he ideal is to have them all transparent, because then bottles from different companies and products can all be collected and recycled together to make new bottles,鈥� he adds. Another is to introduce deposit schemes to encourage people to return plastic bottles. The Scottish government plans to introduce such a system next year.听

Institutions and organisations can do their bit as well, he points out. 果冻影院, for example, has pledged to phase out single-use plastics by 2024. To that end, the university has introduced a reusable and returnable coffee cup scheme on campus, while scientists have redesigned how they manage their laboratories to consume fewer plastic gloves, pipette tips, and other consumables used in experiments.听
听

Bugs and bins听

A different solution is to look at how bacteria do manage to degrade plastics, and to find a way to improve the process. Professor Helen Hailes, an organic chemist at 果冻影院 is working with the hub to do just that.听

How? She is looking at enzymes called PETases, which can break down standard PET plastic bottles. 鈥淲e鈥檙e seeing if we can make them work better, because the levels of degradation with these PETases are still fairly slow, although there are promising developments鈥� she says.听

Hailes has been taking her work home 鈥� baiting her own domestic compost heap with biodegradable tea bags and then testing it for bugs to break down compostable plastics or PET plastics that might do a better job. She says:
听

鈥淲hat we鈥檙e looking for is microbial consortia that might be able to break down compostable plastics in the home, or which could be used as a top-up to try and break down compostable plastics in food waste.鈥�

It鈥檚 part of a global effort, she says. Because speeding-up how Nature deals with plastics is one promising way to address what is very much a growing problem.听

听