Scientists Accidentally Develop Plastic Eating Enzyme

Trash in the ocean and on beaches has become a growing concern all over the world.

Researchers from Britain's University of Portsmouth, and the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) made an interesting discovery while examining a natural enzyme discovered in Japan. They say enzyme is able to eat polyethylene terephthalate, PET, a plastic which is commonly used in the manufacture of plastic bottles.

In their efforts to study the enzyme called, Ideonella sakaiensis 201-F6, they accidentally created a new enzyme that is even better at breaking down plastics.

"We hoped to determine its structure to aid in protein engineering, but we ended up going a step further and accidentally engineered an enzyme with improved performance at breaking down these plastics," said NREL's lead researcher Gregg Beckham.

According to the University of Portsmouth website it is the hope of researchers to someday use the enzyme to create a recycling solution that will help to break down plastics at a much faster rate than they do currently. As it is plastics can linger in landfills for hundreds of years.

"Serendipity often plays a significant role in fundamental scientific research and our discovery here is no exception," said Professor John McGeehan, director of the Institute of Biological and Biomedical Sciences in the School of Biological Sciences at Portsmouth. "Although the improvement is modest, this unanticipated discovery suggests that there is room to further improve these enzymes, moving us closer to a recycling solution for the ever-growing mountain of discarded plastics," said McGeehan.

"Few could have predicted that in the space of 50 years, single-use plastics such as drink bottles would be found washed up on beaches across the globe," said McGeehan.

"We can all play a significant part in dealing with the plastic problem," he added. "But the scientific community who ultimately created these 'wonder-materials' must now use all the technology at their disposal to develop real solutions."

In a recent study published by Scientific Reports there is a growing mass of trash that is already twice the size of Texas floating in the Pacific Ocean. Scientific Reports has been studying the phenomena for three years and are shocked at the rate of growth of the swirling pile of trash. They have even named it, calling it The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

The growing amounts of trash isn't just an ocean problem either. Often some of that trash washes up on once pristine beaches turning paradise into a garbage dump. In the Philippines the garbage problem has gotten so bad that the government has shut down tourism on Boracay Island for six months to do an a much needed clean up.

Philippines famous Boracay island is a popular tourist spot.

So where does all of this trash come from you may wonder? Part of the problem is that many countries do not practice good sanitation. In some countries they just throw all of their trash right into their rivers and streams which eventually dump all of that trash right into the ocean. The Philippines for example are notorious for doing this as is their neighbor China.

Of course left wing extremist liberal environmentalists seek to place the blame for all of this trash in the ocean at the feet of the United States, but I beg to differ. Pictures do not lie. Observe the real culprits responsible for dumping tons of plastics into the ocean.