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I'd feel better about this if they mentioned what the breakdown products are. Statements like "plastic-eating bugs might one day be sprayed on the huge plastic

I'd feel better about this if they mentioned what the breakdown products are. Statements like "plastic-eating bugs might one day be sprayed on the huge plastic garbage patches in the oceans" reminds me of cases where nonnative species were introduced into an environment to "solve" one problem but created worse problems. Also, the PNAS and DOI links in the article are bogus, and I couldn't find a reference to this research on the PNAS website using PET/enzyme/plastic as keywords. I did, however, find an article under the researcher's name[0] and a related article on PET degradation from February[1]. [0] https://phys.org/news/2018-04-plastic-eating-enzyme.html https://phys.org/news/2018-04-plastic-eating-enzyme.html [1] https://phys.org/news/2018-02-insight-molecular-mechanism-pet-degradation.html https://phys.org/news/2018-02-insight-molecular-mechanism-pe...

yourpassword 9y ago
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6278/1196 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6278/1196 > Poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) is used extensively worldwide in plastic products, and its accumulation in the environment has become a global concern. Because the ability to enzymatically degrade PET has been thought to be limited to a few fungal species, biodegradation is not yet a viable remediation or recycling strategy. By screening natural microbial communities exposed to PET in the environment, we isolated a novel bacterium, Ideonella sakaiensis 201-F6, that is able to use PET as its major energy and carbon source. When grown on PET, this strain produces two enzymes capable of hydrolyzing PET and the reaction intermediate, mono(2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalic acid. Both enzymes are required to enzymatically convert PET efficiently into its two environmentally benign monomers, terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol.

yourpassword 9y ago

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6278/1196 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6278/1196 > Poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) is used extensively worldwide in plastic products, and its accumulation in the environment has become a global concern. Because the ability to enzymatically degrade PET has been thought to be limited to a few fungal species, biodegradation is not yet a viable remediation or recycling strategy. By screening natural microbial communities exposed to PET in the environment, we isolated a novel bacterium, Ideonella sakaiensis 201-F6, that is able to use PET as its major energy and carbon source. When grown on PET, this strain produces two enzymes capable of hydrolyzing PET and the reaction intermediate, mono(2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalic acid. Both enzymes are required to enzymatically convert PET efficiently into its two environmentally benign monomers, terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol.