Plastic and algae helping each other to make sustainable and biodegradable stuff

Only if a human employs his imagination and technology, there is almost nothing that can trouble this race for long.

Plastic has become a nuisance for this planet since eternity: clutching marine souls, smothering lives in deep cold waters, clogging waterways and streams in hills etc.

According to a Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) report, nearly 3.3 million metric tonnes of plastic waste get generated yearly in India alone, forming approximately 9,200 tonnes a day (TPD).

Worst is when it gets broken down into microplastics due to extensive wind movement and integrates with human immediate surroundings finally polluting the Mother Nature.

Annually, 8 million tons of this plastic trash gets dumped into no-more-serene oceans, reducing its dissolved oxygen available for the flora-fauna in the marine ecosystem.

But its not just plastic that’s competing for the available resource in vast waters.

When the excessive nutrients drain in the water bodies, this may lead to uncontrolled growth of algal blooms through a process called Eutrophication.

This can eventually ruin the drinking water supplies and create hypoxic “dead zones” in waters where nothing can survive literally, destabilizing the ecological balance in water systems and adversely affecting aquaculture.

Just like any other mishap on this human-damned planet, Climate change has a role to play in this too, accelerating the overall growth.

This can further trigger other problems, like according to a new study  by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, algal blooms have increased the global methane emissions by 30 to 90 percent.

Methane is more dangerous greenhouse gas it remains for long in the atmosphere and is 34 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the short term.

Unless we put our minds and hands at work, this problem will persist and is bound to increase too.

Another study claims that with extra sewage, fertilizers, and other nutrients entering waterways entering waters by 2050, they will register an increase of 200 percent or maybe quadruple by 2100.

Sustainability at work: Blooming the cleaner future

There are several companies those have started manufacturing articles using Bloom, a material that is a blend of polymers and algae.

According to a collaborator at Bloom: “Humans are responsible for excessive amounts of nutrients like CO2, nitrogen and phosphorus leaking into our waterways, lakes and oceans leading to environmental and societal problems.”

“Our idea for founding BLOOM was to transform algae blooms from an environmental problem into a sustainable material that incentivizes capturing CO2 and cleaning water while reducing our use of oil and plastics.”

The idea involves extracting the water saturated with algal blooms and preparing algal pellets after significant drying and reinforcing into such shapes.

These pellets are then mixed in 10-30% proportion along with the plastic pellets supplied to the manufacturers, using plastics in their end products.

Varied blending materials can be obtained from usage of algal biomass, for instance, PLA, PHA, cellulose, starch and protein.

It is to note that the mechanical properties of such microalgae-embedded plastic films were found comparable to the ones manufactured with significant environmental impact.

The principle of genetic engineering can prove to be a promising way in modifying the algae strains to synthesize compounds for bioplastics production like thermoplastics.

Through genetic engineering, alterations can be made to reduce the production cost as the bacterial fermentation system for producing PHB is costly for bioplastics manufacturing

“Brands like Adidas, Dr. Scholl etc. those adopt BLOOM materials into their products are supporting lake restoration and environmental protection projects that have verifiable positive impact that end consumers can understand and embrace.”

Even a single sole of a shoe produced has successfully restored and cleaned 17ltrs of water and helped clean 8gms of CO2.

Subsequently, there has been a petition filed with UNESCO for greater punishment for the pollution of water bodies worldwide.

“We urge UNESCO to develop and implement a global education program work with governments to end destructive agricultural and industrial practices, especially the use of phosphates and nitrates, and start implementing proven, regenerative, nature-based solutions.”