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Organisms That Eat Plastics

Swifty

doesn't negotiate with terriers
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Sep 15, 2013
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Scientists have accidentally created a mutant enzyme that eats plastic bottles .. that's Earth's plastic bottle pollution problem sorted then

Scientists accidentally create mutant enzyme that eats plastic bottles

The breakthrough, spurred by the discovery of plastic-eating bugs at a Japanese dump, could help solve the global plastic pollution crisis

Scientists have created a mutant enzyme that breaks down plastic drinks bottles – by accident. The breakthrough could help solve the global plastic pollution crisis by enabling for the first time the full recycling of bottles.

The new research was spurred by the discovery in 2016 of the first bacterium that had naturally evolved to eat plastic, at a waste dump in Japan. Scientists have now revealed the detailed structure of the crucial enzyme produced by the bug. ...
..

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...reate-mutant-enzyme-that-eats-plastic-bottles
 
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But will it stop? The enzyme will escape from the laboratory and eat all the plastic on Earth!
The plastic could also then evolve into a mutant super bug plastic something monster in response threatening all of human life so we have to bring in jet fighters Ramon! :cool:
 
The plastic could also then evolve into a mutant super bug plastic something monster in response threatening all of human life so we have to bring in jet fighters Ramon! :cool:

My cat will deal with them!

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But will it stop? The enzyme will escape from the laboratory and eat all the plastic on Earth!
Does the Nestene Consciousness know about this? Dear Lord, it's the anti plastic The Doctor used in the episode Rose!
 
But will it stop? The enzyme will escape from the laboratory and eat all the plastic on Earth!

*nods* Like an Ice-9 situation.

Ice-nine is a fictional material that appears in Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle.
Ice-nine is described as a polymorph of water which instead of melting at 0 °C (32 °F), melts at 45.8 °C (114.4 °F). When ice-nine comes into contact with liquid water below 45.8 °C (thus effectively becoming supercooled), it acts as a seed crystal and causes the solidification of the entire body of water, which quickly crystallizes as more ice-nine. As people are mostly water, ice-nine kills nearly instantly when ingested or brought into contact with soft tissues exposed to the bloodstream, such as the eyes or tongue.

In the story, it is invented by Dr. Felix Hoenikker[1] and developed by the Manhattan Project in order for the Marines to no longer need to deal with mud. The project is abandoned when it becomes clear that any quantity of it would have the power to destroy all life on earth. A global catastrophe involving freezing the world's oceans with ice-nine is used as a plot device in Vonnegut's novel.

Vonnegut came across the idea of ice-nine while working at General Electric. He attributes the idea of ice-nine to the chemist Irving Langmuir, who came up with the concept while helping H.G. Wells come up with ideas for stories. Vonnegut decided to adapt the idea into a story after Langmuir's death in 1957.[2]
 
OK so it eats plastic....but what comes out the other end?
 
A bacterium that feeds on toxic plastic has been discovered by scientists. The bug not only breaks the plastic down but uses it as food to power the process.

The bacterium, which was found at a waste site where plastic had been dumped, is the first that is known to attack polyurethane. Millions of tonnes of the plastic is produced every year to use in items such as sports shoes, nappies, kitchen sponges and as foam insulation, but it is mostly sent to landfill because it it too tough to recycle.

When broken down it can release toxic and carcinogenic chemicals which would kill most bacteria, but the newly discovered strain is able to survive. While the research has identified the bug and some of its key characteristics, much work remains to be done before it can be used to treat large amounts of waste plastic.

“These findings represent an important step in being able to reuse hard-to-recycle polyurethane products,” said Hermann Heipieper, at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ in Leipzig, Germany, who is one of the research team. He said it might be 10 years before the bacterium could be used at a large scale and that in the meantime it was vital to reduce the use of plastic that is hard to recycle and to cut the amount of plastic in the environment.

The research, published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology, identified a new strain of Pseudomonas bacteria, a family known for its ability to withstand harsh conditions, such as high temperatures and acidic environments.

The researchers fed it key chemical components of polyurethane in the laboratory. “We found the bacteria can use these compounds as a sole source of carbon, nitrogen and energy,” Heipieper said.

Scientists revealed in 2018 that they had accidentally created a mutant enzyme that breaks down plastic drinks bottles, which are made of PET, potentially enabling the complete recycling of bottles for the first time. One of the team behind this advance, Prof John McGeehan, the director of the Centre for Enzyme Innovation at the University of Portsmouth, England, praised the new work.

“The breakdown of certain polyurethanes can release toxic additives, which need to be handled carefully. This research group has discovered a strain that can tackle some of these chemicals,” he said. “While there is still much work to be done, this is exciting and necessary research that demonstrates the power of looking to nature to find valuable biocatalysts. Understanding and harnessing such natural processes will open the door for innovative recycling solutions.”
 
A bacterium that feeds on toxic plastic has been discovered by scientists. The bug not only breaks the plastic down but uses it as food to power the process.

The bacterium, which was found at a waste site where plastic had been dumped, is the first that is known to attack polyurethane. Millions of tonnes of the plastic is produced every year to use in items such as sports shoes, nappies, kitchen sponges and as foam insulation, but it is mostly sent to landfill because it it too tough to recycle.

Clearly no one who's enthusiastic about this has any respect for the lessons of 1970s British TV science fiction or the novelizations thereof.

Doomwatch: The Plastic Eaters

Mutant 59: The Plastic Eaters
 
Didn't The Andromeda Strain eat plastic too? Haven't seen it in a while.
 
Didn't The Andromeda Strain eat plastic too? Haven't seen it in a while.

Yes - it attacked synthetic rubber and some other plastic materials.
 
I don't remember that at all. I just remember blood turning to powder.

It's in one of the opening scenes in the movie. A fighter pilot's oxygen mask disintegrates as the Andromeda strain attacks him. The powdered blood refers to the way the strain killed humans - by solidifying blood into a granular mass.
 
Yes - it attacked synthetic rubber and some other plastic materials.
Watched it just the over day, it only started disolving plastic once it had mutated. A really good film, well worth watching again.
 
It's in one of the opening scenes in the movie. A fighter pilot's oxygen mask disintegrates as the Andromeda strain attacks him. The powdered blood refers to the way the strain killed humans - by solidifying blood into a granular mass.

Just watched it, the 2008 mini-series, certainly more twists than the 1971 film. I liked it, 7/10.
 
Cows have stomachs with four compartments and the bacteria in one of them – the rumen – produce enzymes which can break down some widely used plastics. The discovery could lead to new technology for processing such materials after use.

Georg Guebitz at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Austria and his colleagues visited a local slaughterhouse and collected samples of the liquid from the rumen of a young ox fed on alpine pastures. They found that the liquid contained many types of enzymes, including cutinases.

The team demonstrated that these enzymes could break down three types of widely used polyesters – namely polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polybutylene adipate terephthalate (PBAT) and polyethylene furanoate (PEF), which are often used to make products including bottles, textiles and bags. The enzymes degraded these substances within one to three days when kept at a temperature of about 40°C to match that of a cow’s stomach.

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...broken-down-by-enzymes-found-in-cow-stomachs/

maximus otter
 
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Cows have stomachs with four compartments and the bacteria in one of them – the rumen – produce enzymes which can break down some widely used plastics. The discovery could lead to new technology for processing such materials after use.

Georg Guebitz at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Austria and his colleagues visited a local slaughterhouse and collected samples of the liquid from the rumen of a young ox fed on alpine pastures. They found that the liquid contained many types of enzymes, including cutinases.

The team demonstrated that these enzymes could break down three types of widely used polyesters – namely polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polybutylene adipate terephthalate (PBAT) and polyethylene furanoate (PEF), which are often used to make products including bottles, textiles and bags. The enzymes degraded these substances within one to three days when kept at a temperature of about 40°C to match that of a cow’s stomach.

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...broken-down-by-enzymes-found-in-cow-stomachs/

maximus otter
We could just feed all our plastic waste to cows :p
 
Would they fart plastic spheres? Already filled with methane. It'd be the death of the traditional fish net float industry!
 
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