When it ends up in landfills, food waste becomes a source of methane — a greenhouse gas even more potent than carbon dioxide. A Toronto-based startup called, Genecis, has figured out a way to turn these emissions into something valuable instead: compostable plastic that can replace plastic made from petroleum.
To achieve this incredible transformation, the company uses two types of bacteria: the first one breaks down the food waste into fatty acids, while the second type eats these fatty acids and eventually turns them into a polymer to store energy into.
And because it’s a naturally occurring polymer, it makes the material fully compostable, meaning that once you throw it away into a natural environment, bacteria will quickly rush to eat it. In contrast, other types of compostable plastic can’t break down as easily; a corn-based plastic fork, for example, acts like regular plastic if it ends up in the ocean.
The startup is partnering with the foodservice company Sodexo, which sees it as a potential circular solution—food waste from corporate cafeterias could be turned into compostable food ware for those same cafeterias, closing the loop on both food and plastic waste.
