Plastic crisis. Shutterstock
The research was led by teams at the University of Portsmouth and the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory and published in "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)".
"The engineering process is much the same as for enzymes now being used in bio-washing detergents and in the manufacture of biofuels - the technology exists and it's well within the possibility that in the coming years we will see an industrially viable process to turn PET and potentially other substrates like PEF, PLA, and PBS, back into their original building blocks so that they can be sustainably recycled", Professor McGeehan said. Manipulating the structure to better understand how it worked, they accidentally engineered the mutant enzyme. While examining the structure of the enzyme that the bacteria produced, the scientists unexpectedly mutated the enzyme itself.
A team led by Professor John McGeehan at the University of Portsmouth has created a mutant enzyme that breaks down PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic, a material used in many soft drink bottles.
The team's findings echo previous discoveries such as that of the Canadian scientists behind BioCellection, who found they could genetically engineer bacteria that can break down plastic 80 times faster than a naturally occurring bacteria, and the research team from China and Stanford University who found that certain mealworms can eat a diet exclusively of polystyrene, also known as Styrofoam.
"What we hope to do is to use an enzyme to convert plastic back to its original components", says Mackichan. The mass-produced material is ubiquitous: More than 1 million plastic bottles are bought around the world every minute. Most of these bottles are made from PET, which can take up to 400 years to biodegrade, and many are littering the oceans.
"I am delighted to be part of an worldwide team that is tackling one of the biggest problems facing our planet", said lead study author Harry Austin, noting that there's much more to be learned and improved upon in this area.
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Growing consumer awareness and pressure has pushed plastic waste to the forefront of sustainability concerns, prompting numerous commitments to reduce single-use plastics, more efforts to combat marine plastic pollution, and the adoption of a bottle deposit scheme in the United Kingdom, to name a few.
But progress is slow, partly because big businesses have aesthetic concerns about bottles made from 100-percent recycled plastic.
An electron microscope image of the enzyme degrading PET plastic. He suggested the use of commercially available biodegradable bioplastics would be a better bet.
Louise Edge, the senior oceans campaigner for Greenpeace, pointed to a larger issue: we must change how we approach and consume plastic products on a wider scale.
"We originally set out to determine how this enzyme evolved from breaking down cutin - the waxy substance on the surface of plants - with cutinase, to degrading synthetic PET with PETase", said Beckham. "It means we won't need to dig up any more oil and, fundamentally, it should reduce the amount of plastic in the environment".
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