It was an accident. Scientists were studying a plastic-eating bacterium found at a waste dump in Japan. They wanted to know what it was, how it worked, what it evolved from.
After running a few tests the team discovered they had inadvertently made the molecule far more effective at consuming plastic bottles.
“What actually turned out was we improved the enzyme, which was a bit of a shock,” said Prof John McGeehan, at the University of Portsmouth, UK, who led the research. “It’s great and a real finding.”
The mutant enzyme takes a few days to start breaking down the plastic – far faster than the centuries it takes in the oceans. But the researchers are optimistic this can be speeded up even further and become a viable large-scale process.
“What we are hoping to do is use this enzyme to turn this plastic back into its original components, so we can literally recycle it back to plastic,” said McGeehan. “It means we won’t need to dig up any more oil and, fundamentally, it should reduce the amount of plastic in the environment.”
“It is a modest improvement – 20% better – but that is not the point,” said McGeehan. “It’s incredible because it tells us that the enzyme is not yet optimised. It gives us scope to use all the technology used in other enzyme development for years and years and make a super-fast enzyme.”
4 comments:
If this eats all plastics what will they store it in? Not plastic, of course. Ooh, the possibilities for horror movies! A Blob update perhaps?
Thanks, Mound. So many of us are in need of a some hopeful news on the environmental front for a change.
Careful there, Lorne. The last paragraph of the Guardian article contains an important caveat:
Prof Adisa Azapagic, at the University of Manchester in the UK, agreed the enzyme could be useful but added: “A full life-cycle assessment would be needed to ensure the technology does not solve one environmental problem – waste – at the expense of others, including additional greenhouse gas emissions.”
PET plastic is made from methanol. In nature, methanol (aka wood alcohol) is produced from methane by enzymes. Although the article doesn't say so, I bet the enzymatic breakdown of PET plastic produces methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. In a controlled environment like a recycling plant, this may not be an insurmountable problem, but it might be disastrous if used to destroy plastics at sea.
Cap
Descended from 'The Cockroach that ate Cincinnati' no doubt.
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