Plastic pollution and food shortage pose a serious threat to the planet, but scientist think they might have come up with a solution.
Did you know that each year, close to 20 billion plastic bottles are tossed in the trash? Or that the world needs to produce at least 50% more food to feed the estimated 9 billion people by 2050?
Trash is, as we all know, detrimental to the environment, but plastic is uniquely problematic because it’s nonbiodegradable and therefore sticks around for a lot longer (up to 1,000 years longer) than other forms of trash.
At the same time the land, biodiversity, oceans, forests, and other forms of natural capital are being depleted at unprecedented rates. Unless we change how we grow our food and manage our natural capital, food security—especially for the world’s poorest—will be at risk.
So how do we fix this? By simply turning plastic into food, according to new science.
The mushroom in the video made by Tech Insider, turns plastic into a edible meal. It grows in a mini laboratory and is part of the Fungi Mutarium system which recycles plastic waste into food. UV lights is used to break down the plastic which is then inserted into pods made of agar, a jello-like material. Finally the plastic-eating fungi is added and after a feew weeks the plastic is gone and the mushroom covers the pod.
Although the fungu mutrium is still a prototype, it might be the future of how we combat plastic pollution and produce food.
