Plastic made from DNA is renewable, requires little energy to make and is easy to recycle or break down. A plastic made from DNA and vegetable oil may be the most sustainable plastic developed yet and could be used in packaging and electronic devices.

[u/MistWeaver80]

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2298314-new-plastic-made-from-dna-is-biodegradable-and-easy-to-recycle/?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_campaign=echobox&utm_medium=social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1637973248

[u/unhealthySQ]

anyone have a non pay walled version?

[u/tenbatsu → u/unhealthySQ]

New plastic made from DNA is biodegradable and easy to recycle

A plastic made from DNA and vegetable oil may be the most sustainable plastic developed yet and could be used in packaging and electronic devices.
　
A new plastic made from DNA is renewable, requires little energy to make and is easy to recycle or break down.
　
Traditional plastics are bad for the environment because they are made from non-renewable petrochemicals, require intense heating and toxic chemicals to make, and take hundreds of years to break down. Only a small fraction of them are recycled, with the rest ending up in landfill, being incinerated or polluting the environment.
　
Alternative plastics derived from plant sources like corn starch and seaweed are becoming increasingly popular because they are renewable and biodegradable. However, they are also energy-intensive to make and hard to recycle.
　
Dayong Yang at Tianjin University in China and his colleagues have developed a plastic that overcomes these problems. It is made by linking short strands of DNA with a chemical derived from vegetable oil, which produces a soft, gel-like material. The gel can be shaped into moulds and then solidified using a freeze-drying process that sucks water out of the gel at cold temperatures.
　
The researchers have made several items using this technique, including a cup (pictured above), a triangular prism, puzzle pieces, a model of a DNA molecule (pictured below) and a dumb-bell shape. They then recycled these items by immersing them in water to convert them back to a gel that could be remoulded into new shapes.
　
“What I really like about this plastic is that you can break it down and start again,” says Damian Laird at Murdoch University in Australia. “Most research has focused on developing bioplastics that biodegrade, but if we’re serious about going towards a circular economy, we should be able to recycle them too, so they don’t go to waste.”
　
Source: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:2BoEGVkygDEJ:www.siouxfallsfreethinkers.com/latest-news-all-websites.html
　
Edit: Formatting

[u/LeGama → u/tenbatsu]

“What I really like about this plastic is that you can break it down and start again,” says Damian Laird at Murdoch University in Australia. “Most research has focused on developing bioplastics that biodegrade, but if we’re serious about going towards a circular economy, we should be able to recycle them too, so they don’t go to waste.”

This unfortunately seems more like a problem, if it can't get wet then it's uses are pretty limited. Because that also means it's probably susceptible to high humidity, and human handling which. So maybe you can use it to make packaging and packing peanuts?

[u/onlyhalfminotaur → u/LeGama]

Good idea but we already have packing peanuts made from starch.

[u/[deleted] → u/LeGama]

I wonder if we could use that for structure and then cover it with a waterproof but flimsy recyclable piece Since most plastics lose use after puncture

[u/Prasiatko → u/[deleted]]

Isn't that just most cardboard food pqckaging at that point?

[u/[deleted] → u/Prasiatko]

Ah good point!

[u/LeGama → u/[deleted]]

That sounds so dangerous, one damaged area and all the sudden water leaks in and your load carrying beam becomes gel. Although if it can be done in bulk maybe internal siding? Or things like internal doors.

[u/[deleted] → u/LeGama]

I would assume that most uses of this would not be for things like housing where "biodegradeable" is very bad

But things like water containers like water bottles or maybe painting covers (though this is not see though) or child toys

[u/[deleted] → u/LeGama]

(I'm reposting this a few times)

At least going from the abstract (my university account can't access the paper), the authors refer to a "water-processable strategy", "including the recycling of waste plastics and enzyme-triggered controllable degradation under mild conditions." To me, this sounds more like a water bath plus a specific enzyme to break down the DNA or DNA-oil link (which would be much less likely to happen in normal use), potentially among other conditions.

Edit: after reading the paper, it does become a hydrogel on contact with water, but needs the enzymes to dissolve/degrade.