Plastic-Degrading Enzyme

  • Magazine Article
  • TBMG-34151
Published April 01, 2019 by Tech Briefs Media Group in United States
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  • English

Eight million metric tons of plastic waste, including polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles, enter the oceans each year, creating huge manmade islands of garbage. Experts estimate that by 2050, there will be as much waste plastic in the ocean by mass as there are fish. A bacterium, Ideonella sakaiensis 201-F6, can degrade plastic bottles but it doesn’t work fast enough to solve plastic recycling at the industrial scale.