Waste into Wonder Ninth grade honors chemistry showed me how magical the world is. Not because I was good at it — it was only thanks to hours of tutoring that I scraped by with a B. Not because I liked my teacher — she was so queerphobic that she wouldn't allow her children to interact with me during Take Your Child to Work Day. But because it taught me that the world was made of chemicals. Before grasping the basics of chemistry, the air was just air. Water was water. The books on my shelves were mere paper. Cookies were flour, sugar, and butter. Stuff was what it was.
Learning chemistry flips this worldview on its head. Though we tend to think of "chemicals" as mysterious substances that could potentially poison us, all matter is made from chemicals. Your thoughts are a series of chemical reactions. Your pants are held together with chemical bonds. The air you breathe is all chemicals, including the oxygen you need to survive.
Understanding this opens up a world of creativity to scientists trying to tackle the plastic waste problem. This week on the show, we hear from Dr. Stephen Wallace whose team figured out how to alter E. coli bacteria to produce a series of enzymes that turn a key component of plastic waste into acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol. Acetaminophen, like over half of our pharmaceuticals, is derived from fossil fuels. This means that the production of pharmaceuticals not only contributes to the climate crisis, but that if we're not careful, humanity could run out of the fossil fuels needed to make life saving medications.
In Dr. Wallace's mind, though, fossil fuels are mostly carbon. And so is most waste. Since microorganisms, like the vast majority of living things, love carbon, he sees potential in every empty plastic bottle. His research focuses on how we can harness microorganisms to turn our waste into something new. In addition to his work turning plastic bottles into acetaminophen, he's also contributed to research that aims to convert sewer waste into perfume. That's right. Sewer waste into perfume. Perfume is made from carbon. And sewer waste is mostly carbon.
We often think of science as something that makes the world less wondrous. Concrete, rational explanations are boring, after all. But once you get down into the nitty gritty details about how reality works, even the pen sitting on your desk is fascinating. And when we harness this wonder, we can use it to make the world a better place. One carbon molecule at a time.
El Wilson Assistant Producer
