This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Plastic might be the last ingredient you would ever add to a cookie recipe. But a team of researchers is looking to change that.
They've programmed yeasts to turn plastic and agricultural waste into edible proteins and flavoring molecules, creating a treat from trash. The technology not only offers a new upcycling method but could also sustain life in disaster zones or even deep-space missions with humans aboard. The researchers presented their results at ACS Fall 2026, held Aug. 23–27, during the "Undergraduate and Graduate Research in Biochemistry and Chemical Biology" symposium at McCormick Place.
As the world struggles with growing plastic pollution and increasing concerns about food security, researchers are looking for ways to turn one problem into a means of solving the other. A team from Southern Illinois University (SIU) Carbondale has put microbes to the test to transform plastic waste into edible food for humans. The work was conducted as part of a NASA-led project aimed at creating food for the resource-limited environment of deep-space exploration.
"We were trying to develop technologies for plastic upcycling to make more valuable products. We thought, why not focus on making food? Because plastic is carbon and food is carbon," explains Associate Professor Lahiru Jayakody.
One of the most common forms of plastic is polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a material often used to make soda and water bottles. PET contains molecules with lots of carbon that could be rebuilt into something like a protein. And while that rebuilding could be done using chemical reactions and solvents in a lab, a simpler and more environmentally friendly solution is to outsource the work to microbes.
Jayakody adds, "Microbes are very clever. So, we are using their traits to solve the problems we created." Scientists have long used microbes, including yeast, as miniature factories to make a variety of molecules. For example, insulin is no longer extracted from animal pancreases—now, yeast can be programmed to make it.
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