At Southern Illinois University Carbondale, researchers have quietly reframed one of modernity's most stubborn contradictions: the same plastic choking the world's oceans is, at its molecular core, carbon — the same element that sustains all life. By engineering yeast to bridge that gap, Associate Professor Lahiru Jayakody and his team have produced a prototype cookie that transforms discarded bottles into edible nutrition, asking whether the waste stream of industrial civilization might yet become a source of sustenance for the billions who will need feeding by 2050.