Plastic eating bacteria

Ok it seems like the previous thread was just fine

So here is more funky news it no way tops recycling but still plastic eating little bacteria sounds interesting

A Plastic-Eating Bacterium Might Help Deal With Waste One Day

Plastic makes great food packaging. It’s waterproof and flexible. And best of all, it’s impervious to all known bacteria – until now. Researchers have found a bacterium in the debris fields around a recycling plant in Japan that can feed off a common type of plastic used in clothing, plastic bottles and food packaging.

The bacterium is a new species called Ideonella sakaiensis, named for the Japanese city Sakai where it was found growing on plastic debris made from a type of plastic called PET or polyethylene terephthalate. “It’s the most unique thing. This bacterium can degrade PET and then make their body from PET,” says Shosuke Yoshida, a microbiologist at Kyoto University and lead author on the study published in Science on Thursday.

Most plastics are insurmountable obstacles for microbes because plastics are large chains of repeating molecules called polymers. The entire chain is far larger than the individual microbe. “So the organism can’t take it inside the cell to metabolize it,” says John Coates, a microbiologist at the University of California, Berkeley who was not involved with the work. Imagine a baby trying to eat an enormous pizza from the middle. It can’t do it. The pie is too big. But Ideonella sakaiensis, which we here at NPR have decided to call “the polymer chomper,” has two enzymes that can slice and dice the plastic polymer into smaller pieces. In other words, the baby gets a pizza cutter.

The bacterium can then take the pieces and eat them, eventually converting the plastic into carbon dioxide and water. After Yoshida and his colleagues isolated the polymer chomper, they were able to watch it disintegrate a plastic film in about six weeks. It would be great if we could culture the bacteria, spray landfills down with them and let them deal with our mountains of plastic refuse. But alas, that may never happen. “It grows very fast,” Yoshida explains, “but it’s likely not so useful in the field” because it chomps very slowly.

www.opb.org...

a reply to: Tehthehet

The idea that they shouldn't bother cultivating this microbe because it breaks plastic down slowly is ABSOLUTELY ASSANINE!!!! Plastic is not going ANYWHERE for thousands of years so if it takes 6 weeks to break down a plastic film well guess what genius, SIX WEEKS IS A LOT FASTER THAN 6,000 YEARS!!!!!!!! MORONS!!!!!!!!

a reply to: 191stMIDET

You gave me goosebumps lol agreed

How ironic would it be to have the plastic recycling bin used to store plastics for recycling itself be recycled by bacteria?

originally posted by: 191stMIDET
a reply to: Tehthehet

The idea that they shouldn't bother cultivating this microbe because it breaks plastic down slowly is ABSOLUTELY ASSANINE!!!! Plastic is not going ANYWHERE for thousands of years so if it takes 6 weeks to break down a plastic film well guess what genius, SIX WEEKS IS A LOT FASTER THAN 6,000 YEARS!!!!!!!! MORONS!!!!!!!!

Looks like somebody got out of the wrong side of bed today..

I read a book about something like this year's ago called the plastic eaters. A very fast plastic eater to clear landfills that gets out of hand. In the last chapter a guy is on a modern jetliner and the plastic pen in his hand dissolves. Que the suspenseful music...

Many plastics were designed to break down with exposure to UV light, so what do we do, BURY THEM.

originally posted by: 191stMIDET
a reply to: Tehthehet

The idea that they shouldn't bother cultivating this microbe because it breaks plastic down slowly is ABSOLUTELY ASSANINE!!!! Plastic is not going ANYWHERE for thousands of years so if it takes 6 weeks to break down a plastic film well guess what genius, SIX WEEKS IS A LOT FASTER THAN 6,000 YEARS!!!!!!!! MORONS!!!!!!!!

But they convert the plastics into CO2 and water. I'm sure that the AGW folks of the world would cry foul because of the increase in CO2.

You can't win with some people. I'm with you--get cultivating and get spraying, assuming that they pose no threat to the immediate environment or ecosystem when produced in much larger-than-natural numbers.

originally posted by: paradoxious
How ironic would it be to have the plastic recycling bin used to store plastics for recycling itself be recycled by bacteria?

ada da what lol my head is spinning like a washing machine after reading that

But they convert the plastics into CO2 and water. I'm sure that the AGW folks of the world would cry foul because of the increase in CO2.

that too ;0 omg error

Many plastics were designed to break down with exposure to UV light, so what do we do, BURY THEM.

omg that too my brain is not design for this

How would we contain them to just the landfill? what happens when they spread out from the landfill and start eating things we don`t want them to eat.They are kind of like termites for plastic.