An enzyme that digests plastic could boost recycling

I&#x27;m fascinated by this. It took 60 million years after trees evolved for microbes to evolve that could digest them[1]. The resulting strata of undigested tree are now most of our coal. Now of course, if a tree dies and is left where it fell, it is usually digested entirely in a number of years by microbial life.<p>What would happen if a microbe evolved that could feed itself from plastic? And what if it got out of the lab? Imagine all the plastic items in the World suddenly as susceptible to rot as wood. It would fundamentally change almost every aspect our existence, in a very short amount of time.<p>[1]: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;phenomena.nationalgeographic.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;01&#x2F;07&#x2F;the-fantastically-strange-origin-of-most-coal-on-earth&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;phenomena.nationalgeographic.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;01&#x2F;07&#x2F;the-fanta...</a>

I have been seeing articles on this topic for at least 5 years. What is stopping this from becoming actual practical process than just PR release that keeps poping up every now and then? Is there any real article on technical problems in this area that are still unsolved?

Can&#x27;t help be reminded of this (awesome) book [1] where a bacterium is engineered to eat PCBs and released in the wild without proper testing, leading to very interesting side-effects.<p>I wonder what byproduct of this digestion would be. I don&#x27;t want to sound like a luddite but remember BPA?<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Zodiac_(novel)" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Zodiac_(novel)</a>

Can someone link to a pdf of the actual paper?<p>Harry P. Austin el al., &quot;Characterization and engineering of a plastic-degrading aromatic polyesterase,&quot; PNAS (2018)

&gt; At the moment, a litre of a solution of even the improved enzyme would break down just a few milligrams of plastic per day. Its plastic-digesting ability must therefore be improved by a hundredfold or more to be commercially useful.<p>Good! The last thing we need right now is yet another source of CO2. I say bury the thing, it&#x27;s that much carbon sequestered for a few hundred years.

Don&#x27;t forget the caterpillars that can do this as well: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bbc.co.uk&#x2F;news&#x2F;science-environment-39694553" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bbc.co.uk&#x2F;news&#x2F;science-environment-39694553</a>

We should engineer this into slime mold and release it into the wild to eat litter.

Anyone remember Andromeda strain? A bug that digests plastic was responsible for the crash of a plane. Bacteria are too small to contain. They&#x27;ll get out somehow - on the worker&#x27;s clothes, etc. And then they&#x27;ll wreak havoc (armageddon?) on this plastic world.

Does anyone remember the first Doomwatch episode, the Plastic Eaters?

Life has an awesome way of turning disaster into opportunity!

there was a judge dredd story way way back where the whole city was falling apart because of something airborne that was eating plastic.<p>are we sure we want this?

George Carlin was right.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=NBRquiS1pis" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=NBRquiS1pis</a>

We get an article like this every week. Wake me up when any of these miracle solutions actually get put into practice. I&#x27;m still waiting for those graphite batteries btw.

&quot;Digesting&quot; enzymes? &quot;Boost recycling&quot;? That sound like a typical click bait.<p>It&#x27;s actually an artificially engineered enzyme formerly discovered in certain bacteria which is able to break PET molecules. Lots of potential, moving on.