
Biology Student Discovers Plastic-Eating Bacteria - cpncrunch
https://greatlakesledger.com/2018/07/01/student-discovers-plastic-eating-bacteria-which-could-solve-global-pollution-crisis/
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22c
Isn't this old news?

* [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/16/scientis...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/16/scientists-accidentally-create-mutant-enzyme-that-eats-plastic-bottles)

* [https://news.stanford.edu/pr/2015/pr-worms-digest-plastics-0...](https://news.stanford.edu/pr/2015/pr-worms-digest-plastics-092915.html)

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dvh
Another evergreens:

\- battery breakthrough

\- solar cells efficiency breakthrough

\- water electrolysis breakthrough

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VMG
\- new antibacterial breakthrough

\- superconductor breakthrough

\- graphene manufacturing breakthrough

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dzhiurgis
\- quantum computing breakthrough

\- cancer treatment breakthrough

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xfactor973
This sounds like the Carboniferous period when fungus couldn’t eat lignin and
trees were piling up.

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aurelian15
Interesting, I learnt something, thank you for mentioning this! This is what
Wikipedia has to say about it [1]:

 _The large coal deposits of the Carboniferous may owe their existence
primarily to two factors. The first of these is the appearance of wood tissue
and bark-bearing trees. The evolution of the wood fiber lignin and the bark-
sealing, waxy substance suberin variously opposed decay organisms so
effectively that dead materials accumulated long enough to fossilise on a
large scale. The second factor was the lower sea levels that occurred during
the Carboniferous as compared to the preceding Devonian period. This promoted
the development of extensive lowland swamps and forests in North America and
Europe. Based on a genetic analysis of mushroom fungi, it was proposed that
large quantities of wood were buried during this period because animals and
decomposing bacteria had not yet evolved enzymes that could effectively digest
the resistant phenolic lignin polymers and waxy suberin polymers. They suggest
that fungi that could break those substances down effectively only became
dominant towards the end of the period, making subsequent coal formation much
rarer._

So indeed, superficially, a few parallels can be drawn to the anthropocene
"plastic age". Some life form (trees) essentially "trashed" the planet with
polymers that were not biodegradable. It took 60 million years until evolution
"caught up" and equipped bacteria and fungi with the enzymes that could
degrade those polymers. Nowadays dead trees in a forest rot within a few
years.

It seems reasonable to think that the same will eventually happen to our
plastic; i.e., if we were to cover the planet in plastic waste, then
eventually, after a few million years (or far sooner, if there are only few
mutations required for the polymer degrading enzymes to be efficient with
plastics), some bioform will be able to feed on that.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Carboniferous&old...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Carboniferous&oldid=844813855#Rocks_and_coal)

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Cthulhu_
It always makes me wonder what a landfill would look like in a million years.

Also, why is plastic being burned? Separate it cleanly and just store it in
packages in a landfill. Either eventually a method of recycling will be found
so the landfill can be harvested again for raw materials, or a bacteria will
be found for that specific plastic that can be released on there.

As it stands, there's trash separation (in developed countries) and then
whatever can't be recycled either goes to a landfill or burned.

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maxerickson
It's likely that nearly free energy is a requirement for mining a landfill so
the plastic won't be worth much of anything by then anyway (just make any
hydrocarbons you need from the air and water).

Really you'd be cleaning up the landfill more than mining it, but that's okay.

A lot of recycling decisions come down to similar considerations, doing them
is a net drain on resources and costs money, so it doesn't make any sense.

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djmips
I may be naive but every time I hear about these efforts I wonder if the
microbes might start degrading plastic things we don't want recycled just yet.

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ars
We manage with wood, we'll manage with plastic.

Everything needs water, so it'll effectively always be about water management.

Also, if necessary we can add poison to the plastic just for those things that
_really_ need it (underground pipes mainly I suspect).

What the world _really_ needs is a strong, light, cheap material that lasts,
after water contact, at full strength, about 3 months, and degrades in a
couple of years.

I've always wondered if there way a _cheap_ way to engineer cellulose or
lignin into a material like this. But it's gotta be really cheap.

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WalterBright
Isn't it amazing that we can make a material that is simply too good?

(I have some plastic toys from the 1960's that are too fragile to touch. My
1972 Dodge has some synthetic foam insulation under the dash that turns to
powder when touched. Maybe we already have the needed technology, it is just
forgotten.)

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ItsMe000001
Are the long-chain molecules "disassembled", or did they just turn into
billions of plastic nano-particles? Out of sight, out of mind? Something
falling into tiny pieces isn't necessarily a _good_ thing. For plastics, we
want the actual molecules to degrade to something that can enter the usual
organic circles of life (the biochemical pathways in various organisms).

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Cthulhu_
^ this, I saw a video recently about it. Plastic does break down, but it turns
into microplastics that find their way into and up through the food chain.

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lindskogen
Might have been this one?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS7IzU2VJIQ&t=0s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS7IzU2VJIQ&t=0s)

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kleopullin
This is a great start: One biology student looking in limited places found
bacteria with the right enzyme. She probably read the Japanese research, and
that's always the right start for a scientist: read the literature.

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xen2xen1
What would really be nice is this being embedded in the plastics themselves
but encapsulated for a few years. Self destructing plastic?

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tcbawo
Now that's what I call planned obscolesence.

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shortformblog
While the story is legit and has been covered other places, this site looks
sketchy and makes me wonder if it's a splog. This feeling is supported by the
lack of available information about the author. The only results that come up
for the author appear to be related to the URL, and when I search for his name
in relation to the other websites he's said to have written for, nothing comes
up.

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throwawayqdhd
I'm extremely naive and ill-informed about biology and evolution, but I'm
going to throw this question out there: isn't it an evolutionary advantage to
evolve mechanisms to digest one of the most abundant materials - plastic - on
the planet? Surely, some organism can find a way to extract some nutritional
value from plastics?

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vanderZwan
> _one of the most abundant materials_

There's too much of it, and it's definitely harming the planet, but is it
really that abundant in absolute terms?

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throwawayqdhd
It's abundant in the sense that there is no competition for it. I'd reckon it
would be an evolutionary advantage to have complete monopoly over a resource.

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mhkool
With a bacteria that convert PET into something else, there is a toxic
byproduct: BPA. I suggest that the student continues the research for BPA-
eating bacteria.

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xmrsilentx
I bet this will lead to huge imbalance in the world of micro-organisms, the
effects of which, we do not understand.

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ars
For some definitions of "huge". Despite all the press about it, there isn't
really all that much plastic out there.

For comparison there's at least 1,000 times as much biomass grown per year as
there is plastic produced per year.

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Tepix
Not exactly reassuring. That's "huge" by pretty much any definition!

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ars
Yah, on further consideration that is pretty huge.

My numbers are off however, my figure for biomass production is only the
weight of the carbon. I can't seem to find numbers for total production.

Especially since the majority of the weight of a plant is in the water - which
has no carbon.

