Picture trash lying in green spaces: wads of chewing gum, cigarette butts, shattered liquor bottles, candy bar wrappers, etc.
Whether by negligence or the failure of waste infrastructure, trash salts highways, rivers, and sidewalks. Eventually, it breaks into grain-sized bits that disperse into the ecosystem. Trash mixes into the sand, silt, and loam where it rests among the plant roots for thousands of years, leaching into and poisoning everything that grows and feeds nearby [1].
As an industrial designer, I’ve always wondered what product design would look like if the end user was the environment rather than humans. What if we made trash that feeds the environment rather than contaminates it? In other words, what if trash was regenerative?
I built Studio 2, an underground biohacking studio, in the basement of my design studio at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) to test whether I could feed trash to microbes. Here, I kept a dorm refrigerator, two light tables, and a makeshift incubator made from a humidifier and heating pads. Upstairs, I was designer Megan. Downstairs, I was mad scientist Megan.
Before joining RISD, I was an apprentice farmer in Maine where I discovered the value organic farmers put on high-quality soil. Plastic is one of soil’s largest manmade contaminants, making up nearly seven percent of soil composition in some places [2]. In my design work, I consider soil instead of people to be my client. For terrestrial organisms like humans (and really most of the creatures we encounter), soil is the alpha and omega of wellbeing. All life on land requires earth in which to grow. So when I think about food security, ecosystems, and equal access to healthy food, I look beneath my feet for inspiration.
To collect and document the bacteria that have the potential to decompose trash, I donned my DayGlo biking vest and carried a sampling kit around Providence, Rhode Island. The vest gave me an air of authority and helped me avoid questioning from curious onlookers. To collect bacteria, I swabbed anywhere trash might end up—on the street, on debris around dumpsters, empty parking lots strewn with the remnants of a midnight tailgate. I haunted restaurant alleys and the edges of the canal. When you look for it, trash is everywhere, so I had to stop myself from taking swabs every few steps.
Once I had collected my library of bacteria, I wanted to test if they could feed on so-called biodegradable plastics. According to the manufacturer descriptions, these could be ideal bacteria food. I was wrong.
Bio-based plastic, either fully or partially constructed from renewable sources, is different from biodegradable, which is plastic made to be consumed by bacteria or fungi [3]. More and more often, we’re seeing plastic products being marketed as “made from plants” or “compostable.” But claims like these are typically accompanied by fine print saying the facilities—industrial composting plants—necessary to degrade these products may not be available in all locations. Here’s the fine print from a label on the back of a package of plastic cutlery: “COMPOSTABLE: For collection in municipal programs where approved.” With no further details, this leaves the consumer with a lot of guesswork.
Biodegradable plastics need a condition of moisture and at least 140° Fahrenheit, making marine and soil environments nonstarters [4]. Back in Studio 2, I started to inoculate shreds of plastic with the bacteria I collected. When introduced to the plastic as a food source, none survived. This is not the most scientific of experiments, but it demonstrated to me that decomposing bioplastic (even those labeled compostable) was not as simple as we’re led to believe.
As my bacteria in the lab failed to digest the plastics, I wondered whether the materials instead require an entire ecosystem to break down. This time I tested “compostable” beach toys and sandwich bags.
Mimicking experiments marine biologists perform when looking for organisms that could digest plastics in the ocean, I put the toys and sandwich bags into makeshift nets (i.e. pantyhose), and tied them to the pilings of an abandoned pier. For 30 days, I let these products flow in the Providence canal, a tributary of the Providence River.
At the end of the test, the materials were little more than dirty—even the ziplock bags seemed like they could be used for a fresh sandwich. These results told me that the microbes were not interested.
Again, I wouldn’t say these were fully comprehensive scientific experiments. I am a designer after all. But my results were definitive enough to indicate a disconnect between human intentions and environmental reality when it comes to plastic.
We need a soil free of plastic. The same can be said for the oceans. The material that exists in a post-plastic world must both serve humans’ temporary needs and a much bigger calling: the material will have to feed the living environment; it must cycle into the ecosystem and support biodiversity. Imagine materials that are designed for the needs of soil and all the decomposers. In my studio, I am rethinking surface textures and chemical compositions to make materials that microbes can love.
[1] Petersen, Kate S. “Microplastics in Farm Soils: A Growing Concern.” Environmental Health News. 31 August 2020.
[2] Anderson Abel de Souza Machado, Chung Wai Lau, Jennifer Till, Werner Kloas, Anika Lehmann, Roland Becker, and Matthias C. Rillig. Impacts of Microplastics on the Soil Biophysical Environment. Environmental Science & Technology 2018 52 (17), 9656-9665. DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.8b02212.
[3] Filiciotto, Layla and Gadi Rothenberg. Biodegradable Plastics: Standards, Policies, and Impacts. Chemistry Europe. 28 October 2020. https://doi.org/10.1002/cssc.202002044
[4] Chamas, Ali, Moon, Hyunjin et al. Degradation Rates of Plastics in the Environment,
ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering 2020 8 (9), 3494-3511. DOI: 10.1021/acssuschemeng.9b06635.
Megan Valanidas is a designer, researcher, and artist who focuses on near future and bio-inspired solutions. Her work employs methods for designing waste streams by collaborating with extra-human species. She was trained in Studio Arts with a focus on wood, metal, and plastics fabrication as well as French linguistics at the University of Arizona. She earned a Masters of Industrial Design from the Rhode Island School of Design. She has been a sustainable futures instructor at RISD and industrial design with a focus on research and speculative investigation at James Madison University. Megan is currently a principal with Altimeter Design Group
Cite This Essay
Valanidas, Megan. “The Breakup: Microbes + Bioplastics.” Biodesigned: Issue 7, 19 May, 2021. Accessed [month, day, year].