Over the course of evolution microorganisms have evolved pathways to break down many materials. The challenge with the many materials that we humans have created over just the past decades is that we cannot wait for evolution to catch up, ergo we have to develop such pathways ourselves. One such example is demonstrated by [Nick W. Johnson] et al. with a recent study in Nature Chemistry that explicitly targets PET plastic, which is very commonly used in plastic bottles.
The researchers modified regular E. coli bacteria to use PET plastic as an input via Lossen rearrangement, which converts hydroxamate esters to isocyanates, with at the end of the pathway para-aminobenzoate (PABA) resulting, which using biosynthesis created paracetamol, the active ingredient in Tylenol. This new pathway is also completely harmless to the bacterium, which is always a potential pitfall with this kind of biological pathway engineering.
In addition to this offering a potential way to convert PET bottles into paracetamol, the researchers note that their findings could be very beneficial to studies targeting other ‘waste’ products from biological pathways.
Thanks to [DjBiohazard] for the tip.
If this takes off, the world is going to have a huge excess of Tylenol available, considering the enormous amount of PET plastic in the waste stream.
Maybe this stuff will escape the laboratories and become the “gray goo” that starts eating the products before they even leave the store shelves.
Back to glass and bakelite?
Just looked and they have to chemically change the PET before throwing it to the bacteria.
So in essence these bacteria are NOT capable of breaking down PET, but instead something similar but processed. Like most of these stories, the title isn’t sensational enough to drive views without a little bit of fudging.
Nah. Life is already nature’s grey goo. If our products were such a great nutrient source for grey goo life would already have started consuming them at a much greater rate.
Women will never have to fear that time of the month again :p
Husbands should not dispose of their fishing gear just yet.
Sounds like a big headache, but that shouldn’t be hard to handle.
Nice
Waiting for the genetic bacterial toolkit to program chemical pathways and produce many of the molecules that the world need, in aqueous phase, without heavy machinery, just bioreactors and refining units… AI might give soon much deeper / finer insights about bacterial genomics.
Unbelivable that we are so weak as a species that we can’t even convince or force the companies that use these plastics in their packaging, to stop using them in the first place.
so… what do you suggest?
But regarding your statement, I see it slightly different. The problem isn’t weakness the problem is strength gained through profit.
No, the problem is that they’re useful.
PET bottles reduce the weight we carry, reduce CO2 emissions from carting glass around, reduce broken glass, reduce injuries, reduce tyre punctures, …
Shrink-wrapping cucumbers for example almost eliminates (pre-consumer) wastage compared to not wrapping them.
We’ve solved one problem, but created a different one instead.
Reminds me of how IIRC there was a time where plastic bags were more environmentally friendly because paper bags were the standard and the big concern was how forests were being decimated.
Now that we’ve seemingly switched to all sustainable sources (at least from what it seems like) the only concern comes in from the clear cutting done for farmland but otherwise paper products no longer have that issue.
Sure.
Please write a paper indicating the effects of banning all plastics. Please include an estimate for deaths related to the medical industry.
But, sure, just ban them right this second.
“Plastic waste is such a headache…”
Scientists: “hold my beer…”
“Paracetamol, the active ingredient in Tylenol”
Or as the rest of the world knows it, the active ingredient in … paracetamol. It’s a generic drug… do you have to buy brand name drugs in the US?
It’s just that the brand name has become genericized, like hoover for vacuum in the UK.
… have to buy brand name drugs ?
No, but one of our national sports is watching the trademark holders fight a years-long battle against the public using the brand names as generics.
The (U.S.) generic name for Tylenol is acetaminophen. If you ask for paracetamol in a pharmacy (chemists) here you’ll just get blank looks. I have no idea why the name is different.
Because if I remember correctly, they’re both half right – the correct chemical name is paracetaminophen.
It’s even worse: Tylenol is the brand, not the product. Oof.
When the bacteria escapes I guess we’ll have to deal with people getting liver damage because of environmental paracetamol overdoses.
Also, I know this isn’t politically correct but one of the positive aspects to plastics is that they don’t rapidly break down, which gives us an opportunity to recycle them. We just need to keep them out of landfills, or recover the ones that are there. Here’s a free idea for anyone who will run with it… How many useful materials and resources are there in a cubic meter of landfill compared to a cubic meter of mined ore? Mining a garbage dump and separating already refined materials has to be easier and more profitable than digging a deep hole in the ground for ore to process.
From what I understand most plastics actually degrade pretty significantly from their first use and so don’t really recycle that well. That (and it costing more) is a big reason why they aren’t recycled as much, because the product will be of lower quality.
It seems kinda like how paper products go down in tiers as the fibers get more chopped up and nasty but paper has the benefit of being able to biodegrade in the end.
Ideally we’d figure out how to get plastics to do something somewhat similar and biodegrade as soon as they hit the ocean but not rot in our kitchens.
Really I’d be fine with burning bulk plastics and ideally creating new plastics from organic materials (not oil), then the only issue would be getting something to eat microplastics.
On mining garbage dumps, I think the real easiest solution would be separating most things before they hit the landfill. If we were handling things better, then landfills wouldn’t be necessary.
Try printing a Benchy, chop it up, extrude it into new filament, and then repeat. This is pre-consumer recycled plastic, and at some point the polymers just break down from repeated exposure to heat (and moisture).
Now try printing a Benchy, get it a little dirty/contaminated with ‘product’ (e.g. anything you might find in a plastic bottle on a store shelf). Chop it up, wash it as best you can, mix in a few fragments of some other incompatible plastic, extrude into new filament, and then repeat. This is post-consumer recycled plastic. In addition to the first problem you also have various contaminants that make it unsuitable for food contact or anything that has special engineering concerns, like a pressurized bottle or corrosive/dangerous contents that you don’t want to accidentally leak out in storage.
This is why plastic recycling doesn’t work well.
Worked in plastics for ~10 years. Plastic recycling has the same issues as paper recycling with regard to fiber length. As polymer chains are broken the material becomes less usable. The main thermoplastic families, PP, PE, PA are very recyclable but it depends a lot on how it has been processed, environmental degradation (heat, UV) and contamination.
As I understand it, the biggest challenge to recycling is separating the waste stream into compatible families. There are also processes that can separate out mixed materials and completely rebuild plastics from the chemistries, but I don’t know whether they’re commercially viable. There’s also “Anything into Oil” which can use anything organic but it fizzled commercially.
The two approaches to dealing with plastics are analogous to the Native Americans (and probably others) and early Europeans (Greeks and Romans specifically). The Native Americans make objects and architecture from biodegradable materials which has minimal negative or positive environmental impact even though they must be remade on a regular basis. The Greeks and Romans used and repurposed stone and concrete, which aren’t “biodegradable” but over time their one-and-done environmental impact is low. Our culture sits squarely at the low point between the two.
I agree, catching waste and repurposing it before it’s buried is the ideal. We still have existing landfills out there. Maybe the example of turning landfills into profit centers would prompt others to implement the easier route of pre-separating as well so both issues would be addressed.
Plot twist! Plastics turned from a headache to humanity to a medicine for headache.
The only thing more harmful to your liver than microplastics would be paracetamol.
Indeed, I stay far away from paracetamol. It’s not that good at what it is suppose to do and even a slight bit over the advised dosage will harm or even kill you.
And doctors seem to largely ignore that limit and just advise you to take more and more, isn’t it great.
I hear some fools in the media give ‘tips’ that you can clean things with paracetamol though, but then it ends in the environment, and through the cycles eventually into your system. So another great thing.