1. Using Nature to Solve Man-made Problems

2. The Facts  Huge environmental problem  Polyethylene—most common plastic  Biodegradable plastic  CO2 emission  Traditional Methods of Degradation  Sunlight, moisure, oxygen, and composting

3. Previous Studies Convert polystyrene into a biodegradable plastic

4. Previous Studies Sphingomonas bacteria and Pseudomonas eat polyethylene

5. Previous Studies

6. What We Could Do Crazy Reengineering Sphingomonas bacteria so they both degrade the plastic and take up the CO2 released during degradation Interesting Scaling up Increase the degradation rate Address the CO2 emission problem Safe Basic research focusing on the biochemical pathway in Sphingomonas and Pseudomonas bacteria that help them eat plastic

7. Good IGEM Project? Applicable Borderlines Energy Reasonable Size Surprisingly Little has been done

8. Sources http://www.reusablebags.com/ http://news.therecord.com/article/354044 http://www.ucd.ie/cscb/main_pages/news/news010306.htm http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=5844268&page=1 http://www.degradable.net/how/in_detail.shtml http://genome.jgi-psf.org/draft_microbes/novar/novar.home.htm http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16649270