This startup’s plant-inspired tech keeps hundreds of millions of plastic particles out of the ocean

Tiny fragments of microplastics—from clothes, car tires, packaging, and other sources—slip through most water filters. But at a water treatment plant on the coast in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where plastic-filled wastewater would normally flow into the ocean, new technology has captured hundreds of millions of microplastic particles over the past year.

The technology, from a startup called PolyGone, can also clean microplastic out of lakes and rivers or treat wastewater at factories.

The startup spun out of research at Princeton, where the founders drew inspiration from aquatic plants that can naturally attract microplastic. The plants have fibrous roots coated in a hydrophobic gel that pulls in pollution. “We managed to imitate the geometry and hydrophobility of the aquatic plant root,