#PETase —an #enzyme that eats plastic—gets closer to reality
https://www.fastcompany.com/90412215/could-this-plastic-eating-enzyme-be-the-miracle-solution-to-our-plastic
Three years ago, Japanese scientists discovered a tiny new bacteria with an unusual ability: The organism, which lived in soil near a plastic bottle recycling plant, could eat plastic. A year later, a plastic-eating fungus was discovered in a landfill in Pakistan. The year after that, a college student discovered plastic-eating bacteria in a polluted site in Houston. Now, researchers from Hitachi and Cambridge Consultants, an engineering and product development company, plan to use synthetic biology to manufacture a similar plastic-eating enzyme. It could later be used in recycling plants or in the environment—and potentially even in the ocean, where as much as 12.7 million metric tons of plastic ends up every year.