New Iowa plant, based on technology developed at MIT, will use bacteria to produce biodegradable plastics from corn.

Every year, more than 250 billion pounds of plastic are produced worldwide. Much of it ends up in the world’s oceans, a fact that troubles MIT biology professor Anthony Sinskey.

“Plastic does not degrade in the ocean. It just gets ground up into tiny particles,” he says. In the Pacific Ocean, a vast swath twice the size of Texas teems with tiny bits of oil-based plastic that can poison ocean life. Read the full story