Scientists discover enzyme that can break down plastic in 24 hours

dikowt dowg

dikowt dowg

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Plastic that would last almost 500 years in a landfill can be broken down in a day by bacteria armed with FAST-PETase and turned into base units that can be reused.

Hal Alper, a professor of Chemical Engineering at UT Austin, told UT News that the possibilities of this discovery “are endless.”

“Beyond the obvious waste management industry, this also provides corporations from every sector the opportunity to take a lead in recycling their products,” he said. “We can begin to envision a true circular plastics economy.”
 
This could be something special.
 
dikowt dowg said:

Plastic that would last almost 500 years in a landfill can be broken down in a day by bacteria armed with FAST-PETase and turned into base units that can be reused.

Hal Alper, a professor of Chemical Engineering at UT Austin, told UT News that the possibilities of this discovery “are endless.”

“Beyond the obvious waste management industry, this also provides corporations from every sector the opportunity to take a lead in recycling their products,” he said. “We can begin to envision a true circular plastics economy.”
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It's not the plastics in a controlled environment (recycled, landfills) that are the problem. It's the plastics that are litter and end up in creeks, rivers, oceans, etc. that are the problem. They can't get these enzymes on that stuff.

I have about a half mile of frontage on my acreage that I mow every 10 days or so. I typically fill the front of my rider with plastic bottles, general trash, beer cans, etc. every time. It's not heavily trafficked but it is 55 mph, so I'm guessing it blows out of the back of pick-ups as they go by or some asshole wings it out their window when it's empty so that if they get pulled over the cop won't see them.

I despise the laziness of litter.

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Red_Alert said:
It's not the plastics in a controlled environment (recycled, landfills) that are the problem. It's the plastics that are litter and end up in creeks, rivers, oceans, etc. that are the problem. They can't get these enzymes on that stuff.

I have about a half mile of frontage on my acreage that I mow every 10 days or so. I typically fill the front of my rider with plastic bottles, general trash, beer cans, etc. every time. It's not heavily trafficked but it is 55 mph, so I'm guessing it blows out of the back of pick-ups as they go by or some asshole wings it out their window when it's empty so that if they get pulled over the cop won't see them.

I despise the laziness of litter.

View attachment 97057
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that's sad.

people are fucking lazy.

I hate when I see a cigarette get flicked out a car window too.
 
Red_Alert said:
It's not the plastics in a controlled environment (recycled, landfills) that are the problem. It's the plastics that are litter and end up in creeks, rivers, oceans, etc. that are the problem. They can't get these enzymes on that stuff.

I have about a half mile of frontage on my acreage that I mow every 10 days or so. I typically fill the front of my rider with plastic bottles, general trash, beer cans, etc. every time. It's not heavily trafficked but it is 55 mph, so I'm guessing it blows out of the back of pick-ups as they go by or some asshole wings it out their window when it's empty so that if they get pulled over the cop won't see them.

I despise the laziness of litter.

View attachment 97057
Click to expand...

lmao .... look at the bud light. In the old days, those country beer drinkers would recycle their aluminum cans. But dwi laws made it to where if you had a beer in the car, out the window it had to go. :dhd:

I don't think this enzyme is doing crap for aluminum cans.

But the plastic....this is a major win for the planet if this works out. Landfills are a problem. They built one in the finger lakes region of NY. There are mountains of garbage being dumped there. They cover it up with fill and pull methane gas out for sale. But these things are massive in size. Several hundred feet in elevation.

The paper goes away, the plastic never rots. If this enzyme is a product that can be bottled and sold to the consumer, every household could be breaking down plastic. Most things decompose. Not plastic. I think that would make a hell of a difference.
 
My old acreage had a creek (appx 300 yds) that ran through it. When I bought it it was on the outskirts of Omaha surrounded by corn and bean fields. They built a housing development behind it and every spring I'd walk it and pick up trash that had washed down into it from that neighborhood. The debris had likely blown out of people's trash cans, got into their storm sewers, which fed my creek.
My creek fed a larger creek (Papio), which eventually emptied into the Missouri River, which then emptied into the Mississippi, and into the Gulf of Mexico.
If that's just the litter in my creek, imagine how much is getting into the oceans.

This is an example of what I'd pick up after just a couple months. Secure your trash, peeps!!

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dikowt dowg said:
lmao .... look at the bud light. In the old days, those country beer drinkers would recycle their aluminum cans. But dwi laws made it to where if you had a beer in the car, out the window it had to go. :dhd:

I don't think this enzyme is doing crap for aluminum cans.

But the plastic....this is a major win for the planet if this works out. Landfills are a problem. They built one in the finger lakes region of NY. There are mountains of garbage being dumped there. They cover it up with fill and pull methane gas out for sale. But these things are massive in size. Several hundred feet in elevation.

The paper goes away, the plastic never rots. If this enzyme is a product that can be bottled and sold to the consumer, every household could be breaking down plastic. Most things decompose. Not plastic. I think that would make a hell of a difference.
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I am not sure how you administer the enzyme to an entire landfill though...

do you have the link for the OP?
 
Red_Alert said:
Yep. Pathetic actually.

I'm out in the country, so it's not just city peeps.
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I think country folks can be worse sometimes...they have no fucking excuse.

and the "that's the fault of DWI laws" might be the dumbest excuses I have ever heard
 
ill said:
I am not sure how you administer the enzyme to an entire landfill though...
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I doubt we can do anything for existing landfills...shy of digging them up. I'm not even sure if that's possible ... methane being flammable. I took this more as something we start doing now...once approved.


ill said:
do you have the link for the OP?
Click to expand...

The link is in the op.
 
dikowt dowg said:
lmao .... look at the bud light. In the old days, those country beer drinkers would recycle their aluminum cans. But dwi laws made it to where if you had a beer in the car, out the window it had to go. :dhd:

I don't think this enzyme is doing crap for aluminum cans.

But the plastic....this is a major win for the planet if this works out. Landfills are a problem. They built one in the finger lakes region of NY. There are mountains of garbage being dumped there. They cover it up with fill and pull methane gas out for sale. But these things are massive in size. Several hundred feet in elevation.

The paper goes away, the plastic never rots. If this enzyme is a product that can be bottled and sold to the consumer, every household could be breaking down plastic. Most things decompose. Not plastic. I think that would make a hell of a difference.
Click to expand...

When I was in Virginia decades ago there was a landfill that they'd dug up. They said they'd found a 40 year old hotdog and bun in a wrapper that was fully intact. LOL
 
ill said:
I hate when I see a cigarette get flicked out a car window too.
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I didn't smoke but in the army, everyone had to pick up cigarette butts. I hated it.
 
ill said:
sorry, didn't see it. It blended in.

so how does it get administered?
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It sounds like you soak plastic in the enzyme or poor it on. I'm not sure. There's not a lot to go on in the article.

Quick science lesson: PET, which is short for polyethylene terephthalate, the chemical name for polyester, is a clear, strong, and lightweight plastic that’s widely used in food packaging and plastic bottles. PETase got its name from its ability to degrade these PET plastics.

To deconstruct PET plastic even more quickly and at low temperatures, researchers adjusted PETase to create a new enzyme, called FAST-PETase, which gives bacteria the ability to recycle waste plastic efficiently.
 
ill said:
I think country folks can be worse sometimes...they have no fucking excuse.

and the "that's the fault of DWI laws" might be the dumbest excuses I have ever heard
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I had a buddy I was fishing with in South Dakota years ago. He got pulled over for speeding and got a warning ticket. When we got back out onto the hwy out his drivers window it went. I chewed his ass and he's still never heard the end of that.
Dude, WTF?

Like I said, I don't know how much blows out of the back of someone's pickup. I just assume the assholes that toss it out their window are trying to avoid the cops seeing the empty beer cans, plastic shooters, etc. if they were to get pulled over.
 
I've always thought these nets were a good idea.
Every major storm sewer outlet should have them. Yes it would cost the city/county to empty the nets, but you could always use prisoners on a work release program to do it and give them and early out of their sentence in return.

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I find at least one of these empty Fireball shooters every time I mow. You know assholes are tossing these out their window in case they get pulled over.

This is just a googled stock photo. I don't drink that shit.

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