the cohen area excellence. this is where all the ashes serving europe to save your romance. 60 minutes. we've got some hot tips for your bucket list. the magic corner check hot spot. and some great culture of the board has to be w, travels off, we go the open the lid or in the hot water and enjoy all that's left afterwards is the packaging. what do we do with all the plastic weight? or could we manage without plastic the

welcome to tomorrow to date, to sign and show on dw eagles . i've been a favorite for decades. the japanese version is especially popular among young people. it's known as rom, and a super fast food appreciated by busy students. the growth, paste, and hubs are packaged in plastic. for an e, you competition, a curriculum, graduate students took on a challenge. could this evening be packaged in something non plastic and edible? maybe excels isn't. uh, i don't know, actually part of the eggs that we can see, but that's still an important resource for us because they also contain interesting properties that could help us create better food packaging people. that's of the items often have for him come with a hard boiled soft full roll,

fix it delivered in their own ideal packaging that plentiful every year. germans alone, each $20000000000.00 of them. so team edgy decided to focus its research on itself from the university of horn high nation to god. it's one of the best in germany for food science with a life that makes all kinds of experiments possible. the team spent 9 months conducting intensive research into edible packaging. in that time they perfected the formula. it's made of fine, the ground excels. he didn't sanitize to be, i genic a vegetable protein on a binding agent. the exact composition remains a secret of water mix. well then poured into a tray, drawing the tiles in the oven, create that famous film that behaves like a plastic bag. no, the price to go property of the film is that it reacts to heat what can be fused together of with the contents of been audit. this means that can be sealed into

separate portions. it's a very simple product, a cup of pasta on a seasoning, sashay at home voltage on the substrate to solve in a split 2nd step of it all together. and that's it. and environmentally friendly snack. without plastic waste winning edgy the 1st prize in the competition . the size of the packaging succeed in retail, food markets, i would say the chances are $5050.00 right now. the situation is quite favorable because companies are looking for new solutions. and this is an interesting solution into the front of those on the students. a already hoping to get a commercial partner with a view to funding, there is still a tip, a sign until the following day. it was great to eat my 1st part noodles with all the packaging packs and evidently sustainable noodle, sleep, create, sustain satisfaction. the

we use it for food, water bottles. detergent, plastic is everywhere. but what is plastic exactly? what is it made up? and why does it stay in the environment for so long? it's of material that's been part of our lives since we were born cheap stereo and practical plastic has assumed various roles over the decades as toys, accessory use, utility products and a dream for innovative designers. plastics consist of large molecules called polymers, which are generally manufactured from mineral oil. the oil is broken down into its constituent components, which are then recombined to create synthetic polymer change. the new material has very special qualities. it's like robust and can be molded into

practically any stream you want. but plastics not as easy to dispose of this instead of polymers are almost impossible to break down and degrees extremely slow . they some need 500 to a 1000 years to fully decompose plastic . so great from an acid production, but not all of them are made for an oil. the some polymers are naturally occurring and are used to make bio plastic. cohen, sugarcane and cellulose can be chemically converted into most regular chains with comparable properties to all derived plastics. they degrade easier and even if it takes them time to do so, there's obviously a need for non fossil basic solutions. 90

percent of plastics are manufactured from oil. the amount recycled corps qualifying is bio plastic, is not even 10 percent. so we're just the plastics that doesn't get recycled and done. a lot of it enters our rivers and from there it's carried out to see our oceans are drowning implants. a team of scientists is analyzing what happens to the plastic left and the water these plastic tanks have been floating around in this water for almost 2 years now and they'll be there for at least another 8. 1 of the tanks is filled with fresh water. the oven with c o 10, you can see it's encoded with quite a layer of salt sea water, a certainly having an effect because it's part of a long term study being conducted at a university in easton, gemini, and smart, basically in this experiment. and we're looking to see how plastic still composed

in water, so that in particular because we want to know whether they can be recycled after by young and water for years, i guess is the researches from dr. bax, university of applied sciences are especially interested in what long term goal to exposure does to normal everyday. plastic waste, how does it change its structure? how is the surfaces affected? the demonic is generally we concerned with what the material does to the eco system . the water, but we're looking at what the water does to our plastic. can we really get it out of the water and use it again because feed us off this as the plastic is being exposed to natural influences in as many different environments as possible. these types of been floating in the baltics that 18 months does not. what does it play as a barnacle with poking out of your home? but we also have 5 old domains that see because you can't recreate that interaction with miss austin. me the,

the team of scientists hoping for lots of new insights, ones that will help us to better find the growing tidal wave of plastic in our oceans. new studies and warning of an exponential rise in the amount of trash and seeds. by 2050. that could be more plastic than fish in the see if in pool. yeah, every year a total of about $300000000.00 metric tons of plastic is produced to be in this see at least $10000000.00 tons end up in our ocean. so that's the united nation is estimate, and you could say a truckload of plastic is dumped into the sea every single minute you have like a kicked plastic can take hundreds of years to break down. it's practically invincible. in water,

it decomposes slowly into micro plastic and then often it's not. it sinks down into the depth. see mon shits. the fits estimated that already 80 percent of plastic is already lying on the see bed and can no longer being removed except thought they would get eaten by worms and all kinds of organisms organism and when to create in short food lines back in our plates by the food chain via the fish we don't can, i can attend up, become many green organizations trying to break this vicious circle. the ocean cleanup is probably the best known project. it uses floating structures to capture marine litter. one is one, ocean is consuming a similar goal using phones to gather up the plastic salt dates and recycle it.

then that is the of a wave project which involves trying to remove liquid from rivers before it can even get to the si se puede to putting of heat and fight. on the one hand, these projects raise awareness of the issue. warning us about our use of plastic him quinn stuff and fuck kind of going to is on the other. they are a drop in the ocean shine by to the defense being in queen stores. we are currently dumping into the seas can be removed by any project or with any technology in the world and how school with it and kind of michelle spike. it agrees. but he's determined to do something to of the plastic, as well as the big projects service, small businesses like his attempting to recycle, bring this up. he and his team produce rucksacks made completely of plastic from the ocean pacific that they were already a lot of great projects out there thinking the more the better. and we think that all these projects combined are also having an effect on the environment. it was

in the philippines, some 100 people got the plastic from the waters off, one of the articles it goes on and the pacific ocean throws up a lot of trash on the beach is here. most of the plastic is only being in the water for a few weeks or months because we can recycle about 20 percent of the other. 80 percent is made up of plastic coated wrapping paper. you can recycle that anywhere in the world, including germany. they are incinerating, this is the only currently existing way of getting rid of these materials. only lorraine that if i'm close to the beach, it's used to make his rock socks us. it's unclear how suitable plastic is this been out at sea for years. in the future science consent new lights on that fucking mach to book the experiments currently being carried out. done until 5, much time as much as the so i'm i know the material is so

contaminated for the cleaning and preparing it to get to a point that it could be turned into something new is so much effort to 1000 the chances of sight in this trash of the songs on the middle of this research on marie mitchell, they say it's important to them. one thing in mind now is the stop listening message. the message can be no problem. we can recycle it. we comp that's, that's done. it shouldn't end up the in the 1st place in black on this stuff done this month. and we will need to keep on researching over the next few years to find out what we can do with the plastic. if it does end up that the ideal solution for the world's waste problems would be a plastic eating pac man. type need a huge appetite, be able to eat fast and i just plastics like p t that's used for water bottles. amazingly, scientists have discovered an enzyme that can do just that. researchers in

the city of leipzig have found an enzyme that breaks down plastic very fast. but to work it has to be heated between 60 and 70 degrees celsius. christiane and son and dick is team building is biotechnology. holds the key to our plastic problem. yes, all, and we look at how nature does things and then copy it. and now the tree uses enzymes to breakdown polymers. so that's what we're doing. the team heads down to one of live 6 main cemeteries. this is where they found their enzyme on a compost heap. let's see what we find the research as identified, an enzyme that decomposes leaves and it can also breakdown p t plastic. so a lot the south, no irvings have a wax like coding formed by an outer layer of eugene which is a polyester and it's uh, that's

a polymer that's built up via esther bonds. just like with p t o. by fusing buick and stuff. and this is the same for many bio plastics to the end. semi enzymes are so non specific that they can recognise and breakdown of broader spectrum of polyesters. and that's designed, that's the advantage we're lucky to have a biological answer if you into our plastic problem. opens up plastic covering for christie and design and decor showed us how fast the enzyme works as long as it's capped at 60 to 70 degrees celsius. the p e t packaging dissolves completely in one day. all that remains is the basic building blocks. the enzyme was lucky, fine for the researchers. we have all the paid show 7, see which stands for polyester, hydrolyzed slide $600.00 on the 7th candidate out of the 9 that we found out that was the best performing enzyme. and this is what it looks like. they produced that 3 d printed model to show how the reaction works. i mean,

it seems the enzyme and here's the key chain with the esther bond, some of the links that will be broken. the man's i'm comes like a pac man, and it goes off the individual ester bonds, leaving the basic building blocks parabolic acids and ethylene glycol. and from them we can make new plastics. i was coming, i mean that noise, plastic christy, and inject, as team have now moved on to the next step, they want to modify the enzymes, dna so that each plastic even faster to do this, they are experimenting with many different modifications. think analyze each variant individually, selecting the most efficient ones for further study. they're also turning to modern technology and artificial intelligence to help bio technologist ronnie frank is assisting them. so give on, it's also no want to scale up our technology. so we have our new prototype here that will allow us to analyze around $100.00 enzyme samples at once. and we've been

studying multiple layers at the same time. can i get the ones to definitely get that will generate the data we need to feed our a. i to then train it to identify new, improved enzymes that can break down plastic couple and they're analyzing thousands of enzymes each day in search of a super enzyme. and they have a larger vision to yeah, why the manufacture ultimately to get the market to work more with polyester likes that are easy to break down with enzymes and damage that will allow us to develop really efficient circular economies and getting up again. and we have no alternative because right now we can cope with the plastic waste of money. so we're looking to the future and we're having a vision of recycling, plastic waves, sustainable fluid is also not high different. so i think the most plastic is made from crude oil, which was produced long before we came along, or norful keentonia from el salvador,

such as the question about that. how is crude oil made crude oil wouldn't be possible without the smouldering animals and puffs clinton itself just food for sea creatures. the petroleum being extracted today, formed over millions of years, and tiny creatures just like these. as soon as clinton dies, it sinks to the bottom of the sea. since there is barely any oxygen at great to depth the plant and does not decay. instead it mixes with different settlements, like clay and found on the sea, but the settlements flowed from rivers into the oceans. together with y'all gotten it clinton, they foamed became sludge. the souls for rock petroleum over the course of 10000 to several 1000000 years. settlement trulia is stuck on top of each other, becoming hundreds of meat as high. this process increases the pressure on the

petroleum souls rock, raises the temperature. when the temperature reaches 80 degrees celsius, the petroleum sol solved begins to transform the loan chain hydrocarbons that make it up. but he can to show to chains. this process is known as cracking the fine grains digested sludge transforms into viscous crude oil. what are the most complex organic compounds on our planet to? extreme pressure force is the oil out of the rock. it my great stop. woods and connex beneath impermeable layers of salt, mostly defined clay, creating an oil deposit. today about 15000000000 liters of black gold are extracted from deposits every day. new crude oil is still forming all the time. as long as there is clinton, the substance is needed to form petroleum, but it wouldn't be ready for millions of use.

the petroleum has been hiring industry for the past 150 years and driving climate change to electricity is one alternative. but electric cars, for example, need rechargeable batteries, and they're still full of precious raw materials. so scientists are looking into how to recycle them efficiently, the top black box, and inside chunks of old batteries, they might not look like it, but they're very valuable. inside are lots of rare metals, including the much sought after lithium the company are correct and they failed. germany has been recycling old batteries from across europe for more than 20 years. engineer reiner psych, a is a battery recycling pioneer. p things. battery recycling has untapped potential

and not fixed. the market is huge right now, but relatively few batteries are being returned because many countries still don't have the collection infrastructure as the contacts cause the awareness of how batteries are collected for recycling is not very pronounced here in germany. either. this is within the best so some other countries have higher collection rates seated and lots of batteries getting mixed in with the electronic waste. or they were exported in such a way that we're not able to trace their route so that so the overall return rates are pretty bad, decent. in fact, less than half of all batteries get recycled. that causes big problems for recyclers. there's not enough demand to build the recycling machines needed to carry out the process. in this pilot plant, depleted lithium batteries are being heated to 550 degree celsius design. the ones

i said, we develop this treasure here ourselves. and it's a pilot plant, a larger one that will go into operation in a few weeks. the plants like this one don't exist anywhere on earth to get this means that batteries have only been on the market for 5 to 10 years. since the same demand for them went up quickly and now they're being recycled to the recycling itself is still very young. and that's why pilot plans like this one are enormously important. if you want to recycle on a large scale in cost and last up to visit to large amounts of lithium ion batteries will be ready for recycling. of these gold colored crumbs are clay minerals used to safely store lithium ion batteries, which are prone to catching on fire. sorting. batteries is still laborious. manual work, their components are very different, but from the outside they're virtually indiscernible. there is no description of which chemicals are inside, so each battery is a unique surprise. right next door

recyclers are working on a destroyed car battery. it might still have some residual charging it. that's why special high voltage electricians are at work here. engineer diagnose so like a says it's worth the effort due to the value of the coveted contents. been a lot of this, if we just focus on the metal lithium, it's one of the metals that's most available on the planet, but it's very finely distributed across the earth's crust. find a tie it into yet costa. here we get the material for free. inside the lithium batteries and that the tenant concentration of 234, or 5 per cent fi device puts in one test. and so these are of course, in easily accessible source about whom austin not to why instructed very laboriously from nature when i can get it free of charge when recycling fly, it can be fun. lithium recycling may soon become big business,

but at the moment it's still in the pioneering phase 2. but to the inconvenience, i'll step to the news of the batteries have just come out of paralysis where we've removed the plastics and if he's it was coming to him and of i'm not so yeah, we're left with the material mix of metals like steel aluminum, copper and black mass mean we now have to separate those metals response muscle to be we're working closely together with our w t. h often on there to see how i'd ask them to them. are w t h. often there's one of the leading institutes in germany when it comes to recycling use batteries. the scientists like pose up on i develop recycling concepts for all types of use batteries, including this used ion battery. the coveted raw material is in the black dust between the thing copper foils. the 1st step is grinding it all

into a fine powder. you smell, it says, you know, the black part wouldn't be active mass, also known as black mass, contains all the valuable materials that you make up a battery from lithium to nickel cobalt to ratified the all of which are extremely rare. but critical according to your opinion. standards thinking, that's why it's very, very important that we can extract the individual elements out of the black mass of them into currently 16 p h. d theses are being written simultaneously on lithium recycling. libya and to reach had specialized then what is known as hydro metallurgy. in this process, the black masses skirt into a water the lithium dissolves into the water, but the other metals do not, which makes them easy to filter out. literally on trees, transforms the black broth into a clear solution. around 90 percent of the lithium contained in the black mass gets re coverage this way. it's laboratory work on the verge of becoming an industrial

process. let's see, i'm in the voltage here it's i own it. and we can recover it from the solution using environmentally friendly process is like membrane technology or i and exchange is when we do that the, let's see, and we get, looks like this. you see a white powder, which is lithium carbonate, a products that can be sold in this form. it can then be used in the production of new boundaries. scientists and industry are predicting that that will be the case in the coming years. extracting elements like graphite, copper, iron, the nickel and cobalt from old batteries is way past the laboratory phase. now the focus is on extracting lithium industrial. the, the white gold of the green energy transition. blood is red. why do you have a science question?

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