The Kitchen Ingredient That Fights Microplastics
If you were a Southern Bell fixing up a gumbo for your in-laws, you will likely reach for an ingredient that is a family favorite: Okra.
If you are not familiar with this particular plant, okra (nicknamed lady fingers due to its long slender shape) is a seed pod that becomes silky/slimy when cooked with a grassy, earthy flavor. Think of it as akin to the taste of eggplant or green beans. It is a common component in Southern, Caribbean and Indian dishes. It’s typically cooked into delicious soups or stews, but it can also be fried.
The unique quality of Okra is that it has a sticky texture when heated, making it a great flocculant for cleaning microplastics from water. A flocculant is a substance that promotes the clumping of particles during the process of cleaning wastewater.
Why is this a big deal?
Up until now, there have been two ways to clean up microplastics:
Number 1: skimming the plastic off the top of the ocean
Number 2: pouring in chemical flocculants that attract microplastics to then drop to the bottom to be picked up
The flaw with method number one is that it only gets what’s floating at the top. Microplastics can become incredibly small (to less than 5mm) due to erosion from sunlight and rough waters. You could be on a boat sailing through a floating garbage patch full of microplastics and have no idea.
The flaw with method number two is that it’s not ideal to add chemicals to our waterways. The main concern is that under certain conditions the flocculants could become toxic.
The benefit of using okra is it's a natural substance that can be readily implemented in existing water cleaning practices.
Associate Professor Rajani Srinivasan, who served as lead investigator for the project said, "It doesn't help if we try to clean up water but add potentially toxic substances to remove the pollutants."
This new scientific discovery is a key step to having nature support nature! Cheers to Okra for making not only your gumbo better, but also our natural environment.
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