Plastic-eating bacteria able to break down PET just discovered

[Plazma Inferno!]

A team at Kyoto University has found a plastic munching microbe. After five years of searching through 250 samples, they isolated a bacteria that could live on poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET), a common plastic used in bottles and clothing. They named the new species of bacteria Ideonella sakaiensis.
This discovery opens a whole new approach to plastic recycling and decontamination. The PET-digesting enzymes offer a way to truly recycle plastic. They could be added to vats of waste, breaking all the bottles or other plastic items down into into easy-to-handle chemicals. These could then be used to make fresh plastics, producing a true recycling system.

http://www.sciencealert.com/new-plastic-munching-bacteria-could-fuel-a-recycling-revolution

I love the potential of this, but I'm not sure it's time to get too excited yet.

 

[Q-reeus]

The first minute here: https://vimeo dot com/38750958 (make the obvious substitutions)
is not far off how effective many domestic waste recycling schemes are. Greenies lobby hard to force municipal councils to force producers to recycle, but fail to target the damn laziness and indifference of the average consumer. Who cannot be bothered to even wash out jars, cans and bottles after use, let alone sort them responsibly.
The extra burden of final sorting, water and detergent intensive rinsing/cleaning, that places on recycling efforts makes it counterproductive overall in many cases. But still the farcical feel good efforts must go on. Well evidently it does actually make sense for aluminium cans, glass bottles/jars, and likely PET bottles.
One area where manufacturers (and supermarkets) themselves consistently fall down is labeling. Often just too much effort required to separate from bottles, plastic bags etc.
So, hoping these new super-bugs make a real difference overall - and don't pose a serious threat if inadvertently released to the wild.

 

[exchemist]

The first minute here: https://vimeo dot com/38750958 (make the obvious substitutions)
is not far off how effective many domestic waste recycling schemes are. Greenies lobby hard to force municipal councils to force producers to recycle, but fail to target the damn laziness and indifference of the average consumer. Who cannot be bothered to even wash out jars, cans and bottles after use, let alone sort them responsibly.
The extra burden of final sorting, water and detergent intensive rinsing/cleaning, that places on recycling efforts makes it counterproductive overall in many cases. But still the farcical feel good efforts must go on. Well evidently it does actually make sense for aluminium cans, glass bottles/jars, and likely PET bottles.
One area where manufacturers (and supermarkets) themselves consistently fall down is labeling. Often just too much effort required to separate from bottles, plastic bags etc.
So, hoping these new super-bugs make a real difference overall - and don't pose a serious threat if inadvertently released to the wild.

It is interesting that you say this about recycling schemes. I have often had the same feeling, especially with the very complicated ones (in the UK they vary wildly from borough to borough), but I have never read any studies that really confirm their environmental effectiveness or otherwise. Do you have any sources on this that I can read?

 

[timojin]

A team at Kyoto University has found a plastic munching microbe. After five years of searching through 250 samples, they isolated a bacteria that could live on poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET), a common plastic used in bottles and clothing. They named the new species of bacteria Ideonella sakaiensis.
This discovery opens a whole new approach to plastic recycling and decontamination. The PET-digesting enzymes offer a way to truly recycle plastic. They could be added to vats of waste, breaking all the bottles or other plastic items down into into easy-to-handle chemicals. These could then be used to make fresh plastics, producing a true recycling system.

http://www.sciencealert.com/new-plastic-munching-bacteria-could-fuel-a-recycling-revolution

I love the potential of this, but I'm not sure it's time to get too excited yet.

Interesting idea . I wonder how much bug is necessary per plastic water bottle is necessary and the how long it will take destroy one bottle , the as the bugs multiply do the abundance of food , then perhaps you dry them up and convert them as food for other living organism.

 

[Q-reeus]

It is interesting that you say this about recycling schemes. I have often had the same feeling, especially with the very complicated ones (in the UK they vary wildly from borough to borough), but I have never read any studies that really confirm their environmental effectiveness or otherwise. Do you have any sources on this that I can read?

My own experience with feed-back from a warehouse manager who candidly informed that the cardboard carton recycling scheme then in place (late 1980's to mid 1990's), was a farce and that in fact the neatly compacted bundles just got dumped because even for perfectly clean cardboard, recycling made no overall sense economically. That I had not expected.
As for a rather in-your-face TV piece:

Sorry about the audio/video quality - maybe it was copied to a recycled DVD first! A glimpse of the original quality:

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

It's been a while since I read about this, so the details are fuzzy. But bacteria have already evolved naturally (not in a laboratory) that can consume one of the first plastics--bakelite? nylon? If this can occur in less than a century, without human involvement, then there's hope.

 

[imeeserrano]

The discovery was very brilliant and I got interested about it. This is very helpful nowadays most especially to those countries that have widely used plastic products. But are these bacteria be found everywhere? And where do they come from?