A university professor grew a new kind of algae in wastewater to see how it thrives and turns true to form and expectation to remove microplastics—the less than 5 mm of plastics that escape detection by naked eye—from its water environment. The University of Missouri posted on its website on February 1 that Prof. Susie Dai has used genetic engineering “to create a new kind of algae that grows in wastewater and can turn microplastics into biomass that is easy to collect and remove.”

Cayon, M. T. (2026, February 22). Engineered algae removes microplastics from water. BusinessMirror, p. A5.