SCIENTISTS ACCIDENTALLY DISCOVERED A PLASTIC EATING ENZYME THAT COULD REVOLUTIONIZE RECYCLING (HBO)
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•May 13, 2018
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An international team of scientists
have accidentally enhanced a plastic eating enzyme in a discovery that could
change our relationship with plastic forever. The breakthrough, if scaled up,
could lead to plastic being broken down into its original components and formed
into plastic items again, removing the need for making more of the material.
With over 1 million plastic bottles sold a minute and at the current rate
plastic set to outweigh fish in the oceans by 2050, plastic pollution is an
environmental menace that has been dubbed a 'planetary crisis' by the United
Nations. Despite the huge challenge, PROFESSOR JOHN MCGEEHAN who headed the
research believes the findings could turn the tide, "I think there's been
a huge amount of doom and gloom stories around plastics and justifiably because
it's a terrible environmental scourge. But this is a story where we've got some
hope that we can actually put together." The research was based on a 2016
discovery in a waste facility in Japan of a bacterium that had evolved to eat
plastic. During the teams attempt to understand the how the enzyme evolved they
made alterations which inadvertently led to the enzyme eating plastic 20%
faster than before. VICE News travels to the seaside city of Portsmouth in the
UK to meet the man behind the discovery and what it might mean for a world
being poisoned by plastic. Subscribe to VICE News here: http://bit.ly/Subscribe-to-VICE-News
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Grateful thanks to PROFESSOR JOHN
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