Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Recycling single-use plastic with bacteria

Very recommendable! Trust in human ingenuity! For several decades, the populations in mostly Western countries were subjected to massive alarmism and false propaganda about single use plastic! 

To develop biodegradable forms of plastic is of course another alternative! I bet, we will also see breakthroughs in this area of research and engineering going forward!

"... Researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev are looking into biodegradation by bacteria — a simpler and more environmentally friendly way to break down and recycle PET (polyethylene terephthalate) ... After several attempts, we saw a microorganism that grows and utilizes polyethylene as a carbon and energy source. These are the bacteria that can handle the polymers,” ... “We understood that in order for the bacteria to biodegrade the carbon bonds in the plastic polymers, it had to be grown in a carbon-free environment, so that the bacteria had no other choice but to consume the only available carbon in the plastic to survive,” ... We had to give them all kinds of additives, like sources of nitrogen and phosphorus to make it easier for them to perform decomposition" ... research team wound up discovering several types of bacteria capable of successfully biodegrading polyethylene microplastics in soil samples ... that within 30 days, 10 to 20 percent of the soil’s weight was lost just through the decomposition activity performed by the bacteria, which emitted carbon dioxide in the process of respiration ... biodegradation is much cheaper than thermal or chemical processes of recycling ..."

Recycling single-use plastic with bacteria - ISRAEL21c Collaboration between Israeli researchers and a Portuguese recycling company to develop a novel solution to the problem of disposable plastic.

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