Could this be the cure to our plastic problem? | Mission Ahead

By now it should be no secret we have a plastic problem the miracle material essential to our daily lives now threatens our planet polluting our oceans and releasing harmful emissions from production to disposal the plastic life cycle annually emits greenhouse gases equal to more than that of 184 million cars dangerously adding to the climate crisis we’re in a bad condition right now we have to go in the other direction for mark harriman the team at new light technologies that meant figuring out how to use greenhouse gases as a resource the answer already existed in nature if you think about it greenhouse gas is the basis of life nature’s gobbling up greenhouse gas every day what we found early on is that there are natural microorganisms in the ocean that consume greenhouse gas as their food source what they discovered was that with these organisms they could create a safe plastic alternative and at the same time remove harmful carbon emissions from the atmosphere for over a decade they’ve been developing a way to do that at scale this is their first commercial production plant this is the one of the most beautiful things that i could look at beauty is in the eye of the beholder i suppose sweet explain to me this in your words beautiful thing we’re looking at here here’s why it’s beautiful this is basically what happens in the ocean recreated on land these large tanks are full of salt water and microorganisms found in the ocean when the organisms are fed greenhouse gases like methane and co2 they naturally produce a biopolymer we have this pure white powder that we can then melt and form in all kinds of parts and pieces the company calls it air carbon which like plastic can be molded into a variety of products from furniture to packaging or products like straws and cutlery this straw as an example reduces the amount of carbon in the air by 30 grams now by itself it’s not a lot but imagine companies that are using hundreds of millions of straws a year we’re talking about tens of thousands of tons of co2e that would otherwise be in the air now destroyed or sequestered and because air carbon is natural it degrades in the ocean in about a year plastic it can take hundreds of years it kind of solves two problems both the plastic pollution problem and also climate change to introduce air carbon to the world new light is launching direct to consumer brands in food wear and in fashion an industry which is responsible for 10 of global carbon emissions what do you think it’s going to take for plastic alternatives like air carbon to make a dent in order to really make the kind of impact that we want to make we’ve spent a lot of time working to bring something to the market that people can afford we make premium products that are designed to go out in very very large scale and compete head-on with the incumbents that are out there in the world today we’re making them available both on a direct-to-consumer basis but we are also working very heavily on on the b2b side in all new light says the products made at its first commercial plant takes the co2 equivalent of 6 000 cars off the road a small start this is my wallet i’m holding something that represents carbon that would have otherwise gone into the air imagine if all the products that we made when we made them like growing a tree leaf actually improved the world whether it’s decarbonizing or going carbon negative i think that’s what the world needs to start to look towards.