New super-enzyme eats plastic bottles six times faster
September 28, 2020 3:14 PM Subscribe
What it says on the tin. New super-enzyme eats plastic bottles six times faster
Breakthrough that builds on plastic-eating bugs first discovered by Japan in 2016 promises to enable full recycling
Breakthrough that builds on plastic-eating bugs first discovered by Japan in 2016 promises to enable full recycling
What do the enzymes break the plastics down into
The original monomer, ethylene terephthalate. PETase uses water to replace the hydrogen at one end of the monomer and the hydroxyl radical at the other end of the monomer.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 3:52 PM on September 28, 2020 [15 favorites]
The original monomer, ethylene terephthalate. PETase uses water to replace the hydrogen at one end of the monomer and the hydroxyl radical at the other end of the monomer.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 3:52 PM on September 28, 2020 [15 favorites]
OMG it's Mutant 59! I loved that book.
posted by heatherlogan at 3:53 PM on September 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by heatherlogan at 3:53 PM on September 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
Man, like just last week NPR was reporting on how recycling plastic was never gonna work. 2020 definitely feels like it's somehow compressed 4 years into six months.
posted by pwnguin at 5:12 PM on September 28, 2020 [8 favorites]
posted by pwnguin at 5:12 PM on September 28, 2020 [8 favorites]
Recycling X won't work until the cost of recovering and reusing X is baked into the price of X.
The problem with plastic is that oil's been allowed to remain cheap. We don't price in the disposal/environmental damage into the cost via taxes.
It isn't that recycling plastic is easy; it's hard. But it's also been economically inefficient, so no one's bothered to fund real research to improve the recycling processes.
posted by explosion at 5:35 PM on September 28, 2020 [20 favorites]
The problem with plastic is that oil's been allowed to remain cheap. We don't price in the disposal/environmental damage into the cost via taxes.
It isn't that recycling plastic is easy; it's hard. But it's also been economically inefficient, so no one's bothered to fund real research to improve the recycling processes.
posted by explosion at 5:35 PM on September 28, 2020 [20 favorites]
The whole reason we have plastic is to market the unusable oil and gas. It s a waste product.
so it s going to take a lot more than a "simple price correction", it s going to take a political movement.
posted by eustatic at 7:09 PM on September 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
so it s going to take a lot more than a "simple price correction", it s going to take a political movement.
posted by eustatic at 7:09 PM on September 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
That's really not the whole reason we have plastic. We have plastics because they're massively useful. And one of the main reasons they're so massively useful is because by and large they're still so novel as to be not yet biodegradable; this is the property that has seen them incorporated into almost all food packaging.
But microbes are adapting as they always and everywhere do, and in another ten thousand years or so, plastic-eating microbes will be ubiquitous enough that microplastics and nanoplastics won't really be a thing any more.
The thing is, though, that we can't really afford to wait ten thousand years. We humans are now dumping so much novel chemistry into our environment as to cause literally incalculable amounts of damage to ecosystems everywhere and ourselves along with them. Plastics are currently a huge part of that.
So anything we can do to clean up our own act and get away from the prevailing extract -> use -> discard industrial model in favour of closed materials loops should be welcomed. There have for quite some while been far too many of us to sustain the illusion that we have an "away" to throw things to.
And yes, we do need a political movement to make that happen. We need to help people understand that enforcement of the rules around private property is not the only legitimate function of the State; it also has a completely justifiable role in enforcing rules that make the throwing-away of damn near anything really fucking expensive.
posted by flabdablet at 12:48 AM on September 29, 2020 [30 favorites]
But microbes are adapting as they always and everywhere do, and in another ten thousand years or so, plastic-eating microbes will be ubiquitous enough that microplastics and nanoplastics won't really be a thing any more.
The thing is, though, that we can't really afford to wait ten thousand years. We humans are now dumping so much novel chemistry into our environment as to cause literally incalculable amounts of damage to ecosystems everywhere and ourselves along with them. Plastics are currently a huge part of that.
So anything we can do to clean up our own act and get away from the prevailing extract -> use -> discard industrial model in favour of closed materials loops should be welcomed. There have for quite some while been far too many of us to sustain the illusion that we have an "away" to throw things to.
And yes, we do need a political movement to make that happen. We need to help people understand that enforcement of the rules around private property is not the only legitimate function of the State; it also has a completely justifiable role in enforcing rules that make the throwing-away of damn near anything really fucking expensive.
posted by flabdablet at 12:48 AM on September 29, 2020 [30 favorites]
Once upon a time there were early plants that colonised the land but which lacked the structure to be anything other than a blob. Then plants evolved lignin that gave them the structural strength to grown into massive ferns and trees and so on. But nobody told the bacteria or the animals who had no way of digesting lignin at the time and were left playing catch up. So plants died and their remains just accumulated for a few eons. Those remnants later got compressed and became oil.
So it is with plastics it seems. But I guess there is a possibility that the friendly enzymes that help out with the recycling might also munch up your tupperware collection (for example).
posted by rongorongo at 4:41 AM on September 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
So it is with plastics it seems. But I guess there is a possibility that the friendly enzymes that help out with the recycling might also munch up your tupperware collection (for example).
posted by rongorongo at 4:41 AM on September 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
More likely your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren's tupperware collection, but in principle yes.
posted by flabdablet at 5:17 AM on September 29, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 5:17 AM on September 29, 2020 [5 favorites]
flabdablet: We have plastics because they're massively useful. And one of the main reasons they're so massively useful is because by and large they're still so novel as to be not yet biodegradable; this is the property that has seen them incorporated into almost all food packaging.
I assume that plastic packaging reduces the amount of habitat we destroy for agricultural production by reducing the amount of food that goes bad. If we lost plastic, I guess we'd have to go back to glass and metal? Anybody have any idea what the difference in energy usage would be for those options versus plastic?
posted by clawsoon at 6:19 AM on September 29, 2020
I assume that plastic packaging reduces the amount of habitat we destroy for agricultural production by reducing the amount of food that goes bad. If we lost plastic, I guess we'd have to go back to glass and metal? Anybody have any idea what the difference in energy usage would be for those options versus plastic?
posted by clawsoon at 6:19 AM on September 29, 2020
The competition for plastic for most of the food wrapping uses that I see isn't glass and metal. It's paper, possibly waxed.
posted by regularfry at 8:12 AM on September 29, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by regularfry at 8:12 AM on September 29, 2020 [2 favorites]
I work in consumer goods and the situation is not as dire as some make it out to be. I can't go into details but major retailers are pushing their vendors to make their products more sustainable.
These major retailers have the clout and scale to make significant impact on the way things are done. If they demand it of their suppliers they are going to get it.
This is by no means sufficient and political action is needed to fully address climate change and many other environmental issues but I did want to bring this up because people trying to make things better.
posted by nolnacs at 9:38 AM on September 29, 2020 [7 favorites]
These major retailers have the clout and scale to make significant impact on the way things are done. If they demand it of their suppliers they are going to get it.
This is by no means sufficient and political action is needed to fully address climate change and many other environmental issues but I did want to bring this up because people trying to make things better.
posted by nolnacs at 9:38 AM on September 29, 2020 [7 favorites]
When bacteria learn to eat plastic in 10,000 years or so, it will cease to be useful. Plastic will become a thing that rots.
posted by Tom-B at 7:24 PM on September 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Tom-B at 7:24 PM on September 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
Tom-B: When bacteria learn to eat plastic in 10,000 years or so, it will cease to be useful. Plastic will become a thing that rots.
As I understand it a couple of bacteria can already break down plastic (hence the source of the experimenter's enzymes), but in the real world they mostly have to do it inside the digestive tracts of insects who chew through the plastic, in order to get the moisture and whatnot that they need. I'm guessing that it's something like the way that as long as you keep wood dry it lasts well, and the bacteria only get a chance at it if they're living in the digestive tracts of termites who are chewing on it.
I'm no expert in any of this, though.
posted by clawsoon at 6:40 AM on September 30, 2020
As I understand it a couple of bacteria can already break down plastic (hence the source of the experimenter's enzymes), but in the real world they mostly have to do it inside the digestive tracts of insects who chew through the plastic, in order to get the moisture and whatnot that they need. I'm guessing that it's something like the way that as long as you keep wood dry it lasts well, and the bacteria only get a chance at it if they're living in the digestive tracts of termites who are chewing on it.
I'm no expert in any of this, though.
posted by clawsoon at 6:40 AM on September 30, 2020
This is great news, but I've got a pitch for a horror movie where this backfires and an ever growing blob of plastic eating goo roves the country. It rest in the light and feeds at night! Our plucky heroes are holed up in a mini-mall grocery store before between a Toys R Us and a Container Store, and the sun is going down!
posted by es_de_bah at 3:29 PM on September 30, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by es_de_bah at 3:29 PM on September 30, 2020 [3 favorites]
As I understand it a couple of bacteria can already break down plastic (hence the source of the experimenter's enzymes), but in the real world they mostly have to do it inside the digestive tracts of insects who chew through the plastic, in order to get the moisture and whatnot that they need.
You'd also need an organism that can metabolize ethylene terephthalate. The reason we have enzymes like sucrase that can do things like cleave the glycosidic bond between glucose and fructose in sucrose is because we metabolize the eventual products.
Plus plastic is really tough shit to metabolize. The reason this enzyme needs it to be 70-something degrees before it can do its work properly is to literally soften the bonds to keep the plastic together. Plastic bonds are very cross linked all the place and don't really give the enzyme a place to work at. If you heat the material up to a point where the bonds start to break and the plastic softens but the enzyme doesn't denature you'll give it more places to do its work and it can start tearing the material apart. You won't get that type of behavior at room temperature.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 8:06 AM on October 1, 2020 [2 favorites]
You'd also need an organism that can metabolize ethylene terephthalate. The reason we have enzymes like sucrase that can do things like cleave the glycosidic bond between glucose and fructose in sucrose is because we metabolize the eventual products.
Plus plastic is really tough shit to metabolize. The reason this enzyme needs it to be 70-something degrees before it can do its work properly is to literally soften the bonds to keep the plastic together. Plastic bonds are very cross linked all the place and don't really give the enzyme a place to work at. If you heat the material up to a point where the bonds start to break and the plastic softens but the enzyme doesn't denature you'll give it more places to do its work and it can start tearing the material apart. You won't get that type of behavior at room temperature.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 8:06 AM on October 1, 2020 [2 favorites]
That's really not the whole reason we have plastic.
I will amend the statement. It s the whole reason we have to have plastic as a consumable good at the scale that the oil industry demands we have plastic as a consumable good. There s too much oil, and too much gas; the oil association needs some way to stay profitable, and the oil lobby will bend the government to their will to make it happen.
posted by eustatic at 8:29 PM on October 1, 2020
I will amend the statement. It s the whole reason we have to have plastic as a consumable good at the scale that the oil industry demands we have plastic as a consumable good. There s too much oil, and too much gas; the oil association needs some way to stay profitable, and the oil lobby will bend the government to their will to make it happen.
posted by eustatic at 8:29 PM on October 1, 2020
The bulk of plastic isn't prosthetics or masks, or useful things. Most plastic is single use, and API needs China, India, and the countries of Africa to scale up until their use is on par with the USA and S Korea.
posted by eustatic at 8:42 PM on October 1, 2020
posted by eustatic at 8:42 PM on October 1, 2020
Destructive as plastics are, they still represent a low single-digit percentage of global fossil fuel extraction. If anybody is pushing the further uptake of single-use plastic packaging it will be plastic packaging manufacturers, not the oil majors.
posted by flabdablet at 3:33 AM on October 3, 2020
posted by flabdablet at 3:33 AM on October 3, 2020
Also, plastic is far less energy or water intensive compared to its counterparts aluminium, glass, cotton, and paper. So it's not exactly a universally bad thing to replace some of these with plastic. Single use plastic bags use a pittance of resources. Paper bags require an order of magnitude more resources. Canvas reusable bags use an order of magnitude more resources again. You could use nylon or woven polypropylene reusable bags because, surprise surprise, they use far less resources to create than their cotton counterparts.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 5:24 AM on October 3, 2020
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 5:24 AM on October 3, 2020
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posted by clawsoon at 3:46 PM on September 28, 2020 [10 favorites]