Engineered yeast turns plastic waste into vanilla-flavored protein cookies
Engineered yeast for converting plastic and biomass compounds into food
Researchers at Southern Illinois University Carbondale have engineered yeast strains to convert plastic and plant waste into edible, protein-rich food additives. By modifying Saccharomyces cerevisiae to produce vanillin from ferulic acid and evolving Rhodosporidium toruloides to consume ethylene glycol and produce beta-carotene, they enhanced the flavor, aroma, and color of 3D-printed 'µBites' cookies. This approach, originally developed for NASA's Deep Space Food Challenge, offers a dual solution to food insecurity and plastic pollution, advancing a circular economy for plastics.
This project's outcomes will revolutionize the production of next-generation microbially derived food ingredients from waste organic carbon, contributing to a circular economy of plastics.
- spockz
Maybe the only thing more worrisome than microplastics everywhere is unstoppable plastics eating organisms everywhere, eating through all plastics everywhere.
- mbil
If you don't eat your biomass compound goo, you can't have any PlastiYum bacterial sludge
- shevy-java
This keeps on re-emerging every year.
The primary issue that has consistently been a problem, is the cost.
- autoexec
> The researchers took PET plastic, discarded corn plant stalks and leaves, and other biomass and put it through a proprietary process called oxidative hydrothermal dissolution. Created by SIU Carbondale Geology Professor Ken Anderson, this method uses water and oxygen at high temperatures and pressures to break down tough material into microbe-accessible pieces. Then, those pieces are fed to the programmed yeasts, which transform them into a variety of new food ingredients, including proteins, fats and acids. Finally, the researchers add fiber, starch and sweetener to the mix and extrude it through a 3D printer, forming protein-rich cookies dubbed µBites (pronounced "microbites"). [https://phys.org/news/2026-08-yeasts-pet-plastic-crop-protei...]
It kind of sounds like they made food out of corn plant stalks and leaves and "other biomass", added fiber, starch, and sweetener, but then just polluted the product with processed waste plastic as an additive. If this really is just using trash as a filler in actual food that's pretty dystopian. I'm sure companies would happily line up to sell their industrial waste products to food companies as an additive, but I'm not seeing the appeal in this for consumers.
- waschl
Is there any of this ”bacteria converting plastic to fuel/food/neutral stuff“ actually applied anywhere at scale under economically reasonably conditions?