
Scientists accidentally create mutant enzyme that eats plastic bottles - bn-usd-mistake
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/16/scientists-accidentally-create-mutant-enzyme-that-eats-plastic-bottles
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olliej
Hyperbolic title (in the original article, link title just copies that)

They improved upon the enzyme isolated from a Japanese bacteria that was found
to degrade PET.

It was interesting to me that plastic bottle “recycling” is just shredding and
using for things like carpet :-/

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mr_spothawk
> “recycling” is just shredding and using for things

if you read the bumped Wired piece from B.Joy yesterday, he touches on (his
vision of) nanotech's future, and the sorts of molecular recycling options
that will come online in the next 12 years.

until then, depolymerization is a hard problem ... so plastic shredding is
what we get.

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olliej
Oh yeah -- I'm not saying it doesn't make sense, just that it wasn't something
I ever thought about/understood. Kind in that weird "plastic melts so you can
just melt it down and remold it, right?" mindset. Even though I do know that
you can't do that for all plastics.

That said, what happens if you grind up + compress + heat those plastics? (it
sounds like you understand this better than I do)

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sooper
What does it break the PET down into?

