People Fixing the World
The plastic eaters
Up next
November 28, 2023
24 minutes
Available for over a year
Every year the world produces 400 million tonnes of plastic – the same weight as all the humans on earth.
Only a small proportion of this is recycled, and this isn’t proper recycling but “downcycling” – the new plastic is of a lower quality, meaning that almost all plastic eventually goes to waste.
But now French company Carbios is using enzymes to break plastic down into its chemical building blocks – which can then be used to make high quality plastic again.
So is plastic on the brink of becoming a resource like glass or aluminium, that you can keep on moulding and recycling again and again?
Presenter: Myra Anubi
Reporter/producer: William Kremer
Series producer: Jon Bithrey
Sound mix: Gareth Jones
Editor: Penny Murphy
email: [email protected]