Scientists accidentally create enzyme that eats plastic waste

We all are aware of the problems plastic causes to the environment and how we can’t do much about it, however, scientists have found a perfect solution for that and that too by accident.

A team of international scientists have accidentally created a mutant enzyme that can break down plastic drink bottles and can completely recycle them for the first time.

A bacterium was discovered by scientists few years ago in 2016 that broke down a common type of plastic used for soft drink bottles called PET (polyethylene terephthalate). Scientists further decided to study the enzyme used by the bacterium for digesting plastic resulting in making an amazing discovery, as Fortune puts it.

Trying to model the enzyme called PETase for understanding its functioning, the researchers accidentally ended up engineering a much better ‘mutant’ version of the enzyme that degraded PET better than the version discovered before in 2016.

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John McGeehan who led the research said, “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.”

The new mutant enzyme takes a few days to start decomposing the plastic, which is way faster as compared to the centuries it takes in the oceans. Researchers are also hopeful that the process can be sped up more and be applied on large-scale, reported The Guardian.

“What we are hoping to do is use this enzyme to turn this plastic back into its original components, so we can literally recycle it back to plastic. It means we won’t need to dig up any more oil and, fundamentally, it should reduce the amount of plastic in the environment,” said McGeehan.

Plastic problem is a growing issue for the world with numerous plastic trash accumulation piling up, oceans filled up with it, marine life dying because of it and more. Thus, this discovery here will play its part in cutting down these plastic-related issues.

As per the researchers, this PETase mutant enzyme can be beneficial in degrading a new polymer used to make bottles called PEF (polyethylene furandicarboxylate). The process will be practically put to use as soon as the researchers will improve its performance via engineering.

“This research is just the beginning and there is much more to be done in this area,” said Harry Austin, the lead author of the research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.