Article 3: Scientists develop ‘mutant’ enzyme that eats plastic

Last quarter I had a finance class and I got into the habit of checking stocks and financial news on CNBC. And when I saw this title on their Most Popular stories last week my curiosity was piqued. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is found in plastic bottles and can last for hundreds of years. Teams of scientists from National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), part of the U.S. Department of Energy, and the U.K.’s University of Portsmouth developed an enzyme that may be able to help degrade plastic bottles made from PET. Scientists are hopeful and eager to see if the mutant enzyme can be improved and “made suitable for industrial-scale application in the recycling and the future circular economy of plastic.”

I always wondered if such a thing could be possible. I remember when I was much younger, my solution to plastic items and mountains of garbage was dumping it into volcanoes small portions at a time or launching it off into the sun. Then everyone had to follow the three Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) and keep the planet clean. This enzyme eating plastic is a novel concept and I can imagine the widespread implications it will have if scientists are successfully able to make it work effectively on a large scale. Some good things include getting rid of such a stubborn substance faster and cleaning up the Earth. Though I wonder if it will also make people abandon their efforts to be more sustainable in other areas because they’ll expect scientists to figure out new solutions so they won’t have to do the work.

After reading this article, I have some questions:

• How long does the enzyme take to work?
• What’s left over after it has done its thing?
• What effects (if any) does it have on humans, plant-life, and animal-life?
• Does it bioaccumulate?
• How long does it last in an eco-system?
• What is necessary to make the enzyme? And what are the environmental impacts related to making this enzyme?

I will be keeping an eye on this topic to see where it goes.

Source: CNBC

Article: Scientists develop ‘mutant’ enzyme that eats plastic

Author: Anmar Frangoul

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/17/scientists-develop-mutant-enzyme-that-eats-plastic.html