Team SHSD says:
We are explorers on a journey to discover creative, effective, and sustainable solutions to everyday challenges.
We are observers who care deeply about people, nature, and the world around us, and
We are experiencers of the changes happening around us and are constantly thinking of ways to make everything better.
The PET plastic says:
I am important - I'm here for your everyday food and drinks.
I am important - I come from petroleum and petrochemicals, which take an extremely long time to form.
I am important - it's important to degrade me in time to prevent waste and pollution.
The OCEAN says:
Look at me - I'm one of the major destinations for unrecycled PET plastics.
Look at me - PET plastic has an extremely slow degradation rate in marine environments.
Look at me – Microplastics pose a severe threat to the health and habitat of marine life.
Building on the work of previous researchers, we created new silkworm individuals that express the PETase and MHETase enzymes, of which the transgenic cocoons were proved to effectively degrade PET plastic products. Our long-term goal is to achieve industrial-scale production of transgenic silk products, and promote sustainability by enabling the recycling of PET plastics through their degradation products.
References
Jambeck, J. R., Geyer, R., Wilcox, C., Siegler, T. R., Perryman, M., Andrady, A., ... & Law, K. L. (2015). Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean. science, 347(6223), 768-771.
Yoshida, S., Hiraga, K., Takehana, T., Taniguchi, I., Yamaji, H., Maeda, Y., ... & Oda, K. (2016). A bacterium that degrades and assimilates poly (ethylene terephthalate). Science, 351(6278), 1196-1199.