Would you eat food made from plastic?

How scientists are transforming plastic waste into food-safe ingredients

I don’t think I need to explain to you that we have a plastic problem.

But, if you’re a numbers person, every year we produce 359 million tons of plastic with 150–200 million of those tons ending up in landfills. That’s over 40%.

Not great.

I’m curious though — how do you feel about converting plastic into food ingredients? Would you eat the upcycled food?

And this isn’t just some imaginary solution.

The seemingly impossible transformation of plastic waste into food-safe ingredients has recently been proven feasible in a study that converted water bottles into vanillin, aka artificial vanilla flavoring.

Breaking down plastic

The main issue with recycling plastics is that as they’re melted down and re-formed, the new material doesn’t act the same way as the virgin plastic.

This is why it’s easier to make new plastic instead of recycling what we already have.