Skip to main content

Mutant bacterial enzyme can break down plastic bottles in just hours

 

Scientists have discovered a mutant bacterial enzyme that is able to break down plastic bottles for recycling within just a few hours.

Recommended Videos

In a proof of concept demonstration, the enzyme was used to break down a ton of waste plastic bottles to the point where they were 90% degraded in only 10 hours, according to a paper recently published in the journal Nature.

Research into the enzyme dates back to 2012, when its properties were discovered in a screening of 100,000 microorganisms.

Carbios, the green chemistry company behind this development, hopes to achieve industrial-scale recycling in five years. To do this, it’s teamed up with companies including Pepsi and L’Oréal to speed up the process. It has also struck a deal with biotech company Novozymes to produce the new enzyme at scale. This will be carried out using fungi in the mass-production process.

The most exciting part of the breakthrough isn’t just the speed at which the enzyme can break down plastic bottles. The mutant enzyme actually breaks plastic down in such a way that it can be recycled into new high-quality water bottles. This is a significant advance on the lower-quality plastic that results from current recycling techniques.

“Present estimates suggest that of the 359 million tons of plastics produced annually worldwide, 150 to 200 million tons accumulate in landfill or in the natural environment,” the researchers write in a paper describing the work.

The researchers hope this approach could be used to help reverse this alarming statistic by making it easy to recycle the polymer polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and reduce waste.

PET is the world’s most common thermoplastic polymer and is used to manufacture bottles, polyester clothing fibers, food containers, assorted packaging, and much more. Figuring out a way to better recycle it won’t end plastic pollution altogether. But if this approach can be scaled as claimed, researchers believe it could turn out to be a massive game-changer for all involved. And, you know, planet Earth along with it.

Luke Dormehl
Former Digital Trends Contributor
I'm a UK-based tech writer covering Cool Tech at Digital Trends. I've also written for Fast Company, Wired, the Guardian…
Google just gave vision to AI, but it’s still not available for everyone
Gemini Live App on the Galaxy S25 Ultra broadcast to a TV showing the Gemini app with the camera feature open

Google has just officially announced the roll out of a powerful Gemini AI feature that means the intelligence can now see.

This started in March as Google began to show off Gemini Live, but it's now become more widely available.

Read more
This modular Pebble and Apple Watch underdog just smashed funding goals
UNA Watch

Both the Pebble Watch and Apple Watch are due some fierce competition as a new modular brand, UNA, is gaining some serous backing and excitement.

The UNA Watch is the creation of a Scottish company that wants to give everyone modular control of smartwatch upgrades and repairs.

Read more
Tesla, Warner Bros. dodge some claims in ‘Blade Runner 2049’ lawsuit, copyright battle continues
Tesla Cybercab at night

Tesla and Warner Bros. scored a partial legal victory as a federal judge dismissed several claims in a lawsuit filed by Alcon Entertainment, a production company behind the 2017 sci-fi movie Blade Runner 2049, Reuters reports.
The lawsuit accused the two companies of using imagery from the film to promote Tesla’s autonomous Cybercab vehicle at an event hosted by Tesla CEO Elon Musk at Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) Studios in Hollywood in October of last year.
U.S. District Judge George Wu indicated he was inclined to dismiss Alcon’s allegations that Tesla and Warner Bros. violated trademark law, according to Reuters. Specifically, the judge said Musk only referenced the original Blade Runner movie at the event, and noted that Tesla and Alcon are not competitors.
"Tesla and Musk are looking to sell cars," Reuters quoted Wu as saying. "Plaintiff is plainly not in that line of business."
Wu also dismissed most of Alcon's claims against Warner Bros., the distributor of the Blade Runner franchise.
However, the judge allowed Alcon to continue its copyright infringement claims against Tesla for its alleged use of AI-generated images mimicking scenes from Blade Runner 2049 without permission.
Alcan says that just hours before the Cybercab event, it had turned down a request from Tesla and WBD to use “an icononic still image” from the movie.
In the lawsuit, Alcon explained its decision by saying that “any prudent brand considering any Tesla partnership has to take Musk’s massively amplified, highly politicized, capricious and arbitrary behavior, which sometimes veers into hate speech, into account.”
Alcon further said it did not want Blade Runner 2049 “to be affiliated with Musk, Tesla, or any Musk company, for all of these reasons.”
But according to Alcon, Tesla went ahead with feeding images from Blade Runner 2049 into an AI image generator to yield a still image that appeared on screen for 10 seconds during the Cybercab event. With the image featured in the background, Musk directly referenced Blade Runner.
Alcon also said that Musk’s reference to Blade Runner 2049 was not a coincidence as the movie features a “strikingly designed, artificially intelligent, fully autonomous car.”

Read more