This could be a huge discovery. It could help recycle and remove plastics from the environment. With the invention of better plastic harvesting technology, this could mean the removal of vast areas of waste plastics in the oceans.
Some rare good news in the fight against plastic pollution: Scientists working with a plastic-eating microbe discovered in Japan two years ago accidentally created a mutant enzyme that sounds like an environmentalist's dream, the Guardian reports.
The enzyme breaks down the PET—polyethylene terephthalate—used in plastic bottles even more efficiently than the original microbe, which had evolved to eat the waste it encountered around an Osaka recycling plant.
More @ Scientists investigating a plastic-eating microbe accidentally improved it
Some rare good news in the fight against plastic pollution: Scientists working with a plastic-eating microbe discovered in Japan two years ago accidentally created a mutant enzyme that sounds like an environmentalist's dream, the Guardian reports.
The enzyme breaks down the PET—polyethylene terephthalate—used in plastic bottles even more efficiently than the original microbe, which had evolved to eat the waste it encountered around an Osaka recycling plant.
More @ Scientists investigating a plastic-eating microbe accidentally improved it
