Plastic-eating enzymes to break down plastic for recycling

• Author:
• Author name

  Quantumrun Foresight
• February 19, 2022

According to the University of Portsmouth, a group of researchers who previously found a plastic-eating enzyme, PETase, has combined it with another enzyme to speed up the plastic degradation process. This new super-enzyme degrades plastic around six times faster than the earlier enzyme, and it could soon be used widely for recycling.

Plastic-eating enzymes context

Plastic pollution has contaminated most natural environments on the planet; in fact, reports are growing that indicate that people in various regions of the world are breathing and consuming microplastic particles. Fortunately, researchers have engineered a super-enzyme that could help in the recycling of plastic. 

The latest version of this super-enzyme was made by mixing two different enzymes; both were found in a plastic-eating bug discovered by Japan in 2016. Scientists introduced an engineered version of the first enzyme in 2018, which can break down plastics in a few days. The most recent super-enzyme works six times faster, giving a boost to future recycling applications. This super-enzyme can also operate at room temperature. 

Disruptive impact

The director and lead co-author of the Centre for Enzyme Innovation at the University of Portsmouth, John McGeehan, said that this development of using enzymes is a considerable step towards recycling plastic and reducing plastic pollution. He also mentioned that scientists had received enough funds to perform further experiments, and successful results could mean that existing Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) could one day be recycled instead of using fossil fuels to produce new plastic products. 

Moreover, researchers are now examining how these enzymes can be further refined to make them work even faster. Mixing these new plastic-eating enzymes with previous ones that degrade natural fibers could enable mixed materials to be fully recycled—a process that is extremely difficult and costly as of 2021.

In addition, researchers have also discovered bugs that eat other plastics, like polyurethane—a material that is widely used but rarely recycled.

Applications for plastic-eating enzymes

Plastic-eating enzymes can be used to:

• Profitably turn plastic waste back into raw materials for cost-effective industrial use.
• Degrade plastic waste in large-scale commercial projects.
• Reduce the size of world garbage dumps (including the great Pacific garbage patch) and rehabilitate waste-affected environments.
• Recycle mixed-fabric clothing in the fashion industry, helping the sector to achieve circular waste goals. 

Questions to comment on

• Could these plastic-eating enzymes be the solution to the world’s plastic waste problems?
• How will happen to plastic waste be handled in the future?
• How might current systems of waste management change with the introduction of these new enzymes?
• Is the recycling of plastic through plastic-eating enzymes an economical solution?