Scientists Accidentally Create Mutant Enzyme That Eats Plastic Bottles (theguardian.com)

Scientists have created a mutant enzyme that breaks down plastic drinks bottles -- by accident. The breakthrough could help solve the global plastic pollution crisis by enabling for the first time the full recycling of bottles. From a report: The new research was spurred by the discovery in 2016 of the first bacterium that had naturally evolved to eat plastic, at a waste dump in Japan. Scientists have now revealed the detailed structure of the crucial enzyme produced by the bug. The international team then tweaked the enzyme to see how it had evolved, but tests showed they had inadvertently made the molecule even better at breaking down the PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic used for soft drink bottles. "What actually turned out was we improved the enzyme, which was a bit of a shock," said Prof John McGeehan, at the University of Portsmouth, UK, who led the research. "It's great and a real finding." The mutant enzyme takes a few days to start breaking down the plastic -- far faster than the centuries it takes in the oceans. But the researchers are optimistic this can be speeded up even further and become a viable large-scale process.

Comments

Can't wait for this to get loose

[dlingman]

If it gets loose, will it eat the bottles on the shelves? Will it also eat the fleece jackets made from recycled PET bottles?

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

Do rubber tires or hosepipes or e.g. gasoline tubes count as "plastic"?

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[TeknoHog]

I remember news about plastic-eating bacteria back in the 90s. The local newspaper had a cartoon with bugs munching on credit cards.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Rick Schumann]

..or eat the plastics on an airplane in flight, causing it to crash? Or anything else synthetic?

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

Scientists have created a mutant enzyme,

I'm pretty sure this is how a zombie apocalypse starts.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Fly Swatter]

It's fun to imagine the mayhem if it also eats vinyl: Vinyl siding. Vinyl windows. Vapor barriers. Drain and sewer pipes (and some supply pipes). Electrical insulation. And thats just a basic modern home.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[reboot246]

If it can eat polyethylene, there go thousands of miles of natural gas main and services. Can you say "BOOM"?

It may be better to bring the plastic to the bacteria in a controlled environment than let the bacteria loose in the wild. They have a way of mutating into different strains really fast. Today PET, tomorrow the world!!

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

Not in Europe.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Xtifr]

If the enzyme gets loose? You do know what an enzyme is, don't you?

The bacteria which produced the precursor is already loose--it was a naturally occurring beast. Just how dangerous it is remains to be seen. It's worth worrying about.

But this new enzyme? It's true that enzymes aren't destroyed by their processes--that's one of their defining features--but they also don't move by themselves, so they're not going to "eat" anything they're not actively placed on. Nor do they reproduce. I think we're pretty safe.

I mean, sulfuric acid will also eat many plastics. Do you worry about sulfuric acid "getting loose" and eating your fleece jacket?

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Cashews]

My plastic dildos!

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, planet Earth won't be saved until we find a bacteria that eats creimers.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[SuperKendall]

so they're not going to "eat" anything they're not actively placed on. Nor do they reproduce. I think we're pretty safe.

Right up until someone slips the enzyme into the de-icing spray at the airport... ;-)

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[catalina]

Uh-oh..As a boater, will I now have to worry about polyestermites while I'm at sea?

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

How does an enzyme get loose? Remember, an enzyme is just a biology term for a catalyst. Yes, the action can be slightly different. But the key thing is that an enzyme is not alive. It is not a bacteria. It doesn't replicate on its own. It has to be replicated through a process. So how does it get loose? If you spill some, it breaks down the plastic it landed on. That's it.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[powerlord]

Its not a question of IF it will get loose, its a question of WHEN, and whether we'll be able to deal with it, or will it mutate to a point where we are all just grey goo.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[FatdogHaiku]

From just the summary, they tweaked the enzyme, not the bacteria.
As to the bacteria getting loose, they found it in a dump so it is loose already...

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

Superfag Kendall once again expressing his unreasonably retarded conspiracy theory mentality to the world, in defense of retarded traitor Donald Trump only abstractly this time... sad! What a cowardly traitor bitch he must be.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Xtifr]

They could do the same thing with H2SO4, which is a whole lot cheaper, and isn't limited to affecting PETs. I don't see why one is a worry and the other not.

Re: Can't wait for this to get loose

[Hentai007]

Memoirs Found in a Bathtub scenario

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, planet Earth won't be saved until we find a bacteria that eats creimertards.

FTFY — I'm surprised you're still trolling creimer after the outpouring of support that he got from the community. Shame on you!

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Fly Swatter]

Are you saying you don't have electricity or plumbing yet over there?

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

I keep hearing panic every time one of these plastic-eating bacteria articles shows up. Do people somehow forget that we get along fine with the 5 million types of bacteria that eat *wood*?
Just because something can eat a specific material doesn't mean it can exist anywhere under any condition.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[slew]

I mean, sulfuric acid will also eat many plastics. Do you worry about sulfuric acid "getting loose" and eating your fleece jacket?

I think you might want to go back to the acid-rain days of the '70's and '80's and see how well this argument holds up.

Similar arguments today about sequestered carbon dioxide or methane clathrate "getting loose" and warming our planet.

So just how will they attack plastic pollution like the great pacific garbage patch? The patch isn't because we are deliberately dumping plastic waste (which could be broken down by this enzyme, but is being dumped into landfills), places like the garbage patch are apparently from plastic waste that isn't in the landfill cycle and is being washed away down storm drains into the ocean.

It seems like some sort of "getting loose" would be required for this to actually be of any use in anything other than the current landfill garbage cycle and even then, it's not like land-fills are totally "leakproof"...

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[MrLogic17]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00...

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

..or eat the plastics on an airplane in flight, causing it to crash? Or anything else synthetic?

Carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) is widely used in airplanes nowadays. So, hypothetically yes.

Re: Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it will eat the plastic that encapsulates integrated circuits. And plastic wire insulation

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[youngone]

Do rubber tires or hosepipes or e.g. gasoline tubes count as "plastic"?

No, rubber is not PET.

Re: Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

I can think of much more entertaining things someone might slip into a substance thatâ(TM)s going to be sprayed on an airplane. Gallium for example.

Re: Can't wait for this to get loose

[ceoyoyo]

Doctor evil makes a trillion tonnes of it and sprays it into the upper atmosphere tontain down.

Slashdotâ(TM)s readership is clearly entering the crazy reactionary geezer phase of life.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

This is going to be interesting. It's the "grey goo" scenario. Once it gets into the environment and out of a controlled "recycling" facility:

- Oh yeah, spray it everywhere to eat plastic, what is the waste product?
- Oh, there go my plastic fillings
- Oh there goes my plastic eyeglasses lenses, and frames
- Oh there goes the plastic in my smartphone, laptop, desktop
- Oh there goes the plastic in my surgical implants/medical devices
- Oh there goes the plastic keeping my car, boat, airplane running
- Oh there goes the plastic in all my kids toys

Never mind the plastic used for the drink bottles just sitting on the shelves and in vending machines.

What is the waste product? Is it going to be like BPA?

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

You should have gone with platinum cured food grade silicone. Then you wouldn't be in this mess.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

They are using the enzyme found in the bacterium Ideonella sakaiensis not the bacterium itself.
They are not breeding the bacterium so it is not going to get out and reproduce.

Also the only accident we discovering the bacterium in the first place.

They were surprised with the speed it converted PEF.

See BBC news article:
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-43783631

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Applehu Akbar]

It's fun to imagine the mayhem if it also eats vinyl

Hipsters sobbing as their precious record collections turn to grey goo and they have to start downloading music again, like Walmart shoppers.

Re: Can't wait for this to get loose

[aliquis]

It's an enzyme. Not a bacteria. In this case.

Originally it's a bacteria but what are you gonna do about it and kinda why? Losing plastic would still be worth it.

Re: Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

Then the smug fucks will be the people who were collecing all the ceramic and gold I.C.s on eBay. Those 1702 eproms will comme in handy.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup =) From the movie I am Legend:

[first lines]

TV Personality: The world of medicine has seen its share of miracle cures, from the polio vaccine to heart transplants. But all past achievements may pale in comparison to the work of Dr. Alice Krippin. Thank you so much for joining us this morning.

Dr. Alice Krippin: Not at all.

TV Personality: So, Dr. Krippin, give it to me in a nutshell.

Dr. Alice Krippin: Well, the premise is quite simple - um, take something designed by nature and reprogram it to make it work for the body rather than against it.

TV Personality: You're talking about a virus?

Dr. Alice Krippin: Indeed, yes. In this case the measles, um, virus which has been engineered at a genetic level to be helpful rather than harmful. Um, I find the best way to describe it is if you can... if you can imagine your body as a highway, and you picture the virus as a very fast car, um, being driven by a very bad man. Imagine the damage that car can cause. Then if you replace that man with a cop... the picture changes. And that's essentially what we've done.

TV Personality: And how many people have you treated so far?

Dr. Alice Krippin: Well, we've had ten thousand and nine clinical trials in humans so far.

TV Personality: And how many are cancer-free?

Dr. Alice Krippin: Ten thousand and nine.

TV Personality: So you have actually cured cancer.

Dr. Alice Krippin: Yes, yes... yes, we have.

[cuts to post-apocalyptic New York three years later]

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

only in london

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[DontBeAMoran]

Oh man, I haven't seen that movie in ages. That would be a much better movie for a remake than all the insipid crap Hollywood has been recycling for the last three decades.

Re: Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the insulation on the engines of tractors, trains, truck and freighters. Then we all starve.

Re: Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah a dog is a PET, a cat can be a PET....

Rubber on the other hand can only be used for PETting at best but is not a PET.

Re: Can't wait for this to get loose

[duke_cheetah2003]

Losing plastic would still be worth it.

Not really. We as a society are extremely dependent on this stuff. We use it for just about everything, from cars and machinery, to furnishings and toys, right down to medical tubing and syringes. We need our plastic, we don't have anything lined up to take its place in the modern world.

What we don't need is "disposable" plastic containers, these were an awful idea. Let's go back to glass. Sure it's heavier, but we can recycle it much easier and it's not such an annoyance in the wild.

If people would just use their brains, we could eliminate so much plastic waste. We've gone way off the deep-end with putting everything in "disposable" plastic containers.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

Chris, they're made from silicone rubber.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[meglon]

....and yet, it wasn't (in my opinion) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt04...

Re: Can't wait for this to get loose

[bestweasel]

They stopped using the Carbon Reinforced Airplane Polymer for some reason.

Re: Can't wait for this to get loose

[bestweasel]

There are thousands of bacteria in millions of dumps working on the same problem right now, not to mention all their relatives in the oceans. Who knows what they'll come up with?

Re: Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

This bacteria must survive in the wild. And also multiply and spread alone, indepenent from any human intervention or help.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Plazmid]

It could very well get loose.

The issue is with how the mutant enzyme is made. I must note that I have not been able to find the paper this article was about(link in article does not work), but it is quite likely that they made their mutant enzyme by modifying the DNA sequence of original enzyme and putting that into some microorganism. The enzyme itself does not replicate, but the microorganism they used to make sufficient quantities of enzyme does. That could escape.

Whether this is an issue is another problem. The enzyme might not work in real world conditions, perhaps in the study they might have used higher temperatures. The interesting question though is whether we have actually done better than nature here. Sure, there are very massive amounts of these bacteria present in nature and given time they might evolve the same enzyme. However, have we found this enzyme faster than nature? While mutations occur in random genome locations in nature, with these mutant enzyme studies we can target these mutations to just these enzymes.

Re: Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably out there there are also other types of bacteria who "eat" plastic, but this take time as a very slow natural process, decomposing PET, PVC (and other plastic products originaly from petroleum) in base components.

Re: Can't wait for this to get loose

[freeze128]

It's an *ENZYME*, not bacteria. It isn't alive. It doesn't reproduce. It isn't a virus. It does not infect organisms to cause them to make more of itself. It just helps a particular chemical change to occur.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[mnemotronic]

... Or anything else synthetic?

Trump's hair?

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[mnemotronic]

Oh man, I haven't seen that movie in ages. That would be a much better movie for a remake than all the insipid crap Hollywood

....and yet, it wasn't (in my opinion) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt04... [imdb.com]

Thx for the link. I lost track of the remake after hearing one rumor. Never bothered to follow up. At least it had Viola Davis. Was it any good? If not, you can't blame Michael Crichton.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

If the enzyme gets loose? You do know what an enzyme is, don't you?

The bacteria which produced the precursor is already loose--it was a naturally occurring beast. Just how dangerous it is remains to be seen. It's worth worrying about.

But this new enzyme? It's true that enzymes aren't destroyed by their processes--that's one of their defining features--but they also don't move by themselves, so they're not going to "eat" anything they're not actively placed on. Nor do they reproduce. I think we're pretty safe.

I mean, sulfuric acid will also eat many plastics. Do you worry about sulfuric acid "getting loose" and eating your fleece jacket?

Sure sure....that's what they said about amino acids. Then they unionized and we got to deal with the proteins. Don't trust these enzymes one bit I tell you.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[e3m4n]

yep, and out of control it will start attacking artificial heart valves, stints, IUDs and just about every other non-junk application of plastics. Now it will just take some other scientist to make some bacteria that secretes this enzyme as a bi-product.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[meglon]

It's so-so. Being older, the original made it's impact on me... so a remake is going to have to be really good for me to give it a nod. This one i didn't feel lived up to it, but i'm obviously biased a bit. It wasn't horrible, and if you find yourself with a couple hours to kill... well... it's certainly better than a lot of remakes (virtually all remakes). that Holliywood has turned out the past couple decades; the bar is low there, though.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[meglon]

Do you worry about sulfuric acid "getting loose" and eating your fleece jacket?

Well i wasn't until NOW!!! Thanks!!!111!!!!

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

a great FICTION read on such fears

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/86452.Ill_Wind

It's the largest oil spill in history: a crashed supertanker in San Francisco Bay. Desperate to avert environmental damage—and a PR disaster—the multinational oil company releases an untested "designer microbe" to break up the spill.

An "oil-eating" microbe, designed to consume anything made of petrocarbons: oil, gasoline, synthetic fabrics, and of course plastic.

What the company doesn't realize is that their microbe propagates through the air. But when every car in the Bay Area turns up with an empty gas tank, they begin to suspect something is terribly wrong.

And when, in just a few days, every piece of plastic in the world has dissolved, it's too late... (less)

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that a kitchen implement in your pocket or are you happy to see me?

Re: Can't wait for this to get loose

[FatdogHaiku]

With a concerted effort, they could consume all the shotgun shell casings and THEN cause a zombie apocalypse...
Gentlemen, start your chainsaws!

Re: Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

Losing plastic would still be worth it.

Not really. We as a society are extremely dependent on this stuff. We use it for just about everything, from cars and machinery, to furnishings and toys, right down to medical tubing and syringes. We need our plastic, we don't have anything lined up to take its place in the modern world.

What we don't need is "disposable" plastic containers, these were an awful idea. Let's go back to glass. Sure it's heavier, but we can recycle it much easier and it's not such an annoyance in the wild.

If people would just use their brains, we could eliminate so much plastic waste. We've gone way off the deep-end with putting everything in "disposable" plastic containers.

And broken glass all over the sidewalks.

Have seen enough of the Snapple bottles on my Saturday runs.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[allcoolnameswheretak]

My shiny, expensive LEGO collection!?! =-O

KILL IT WITH FIRE!

Re: Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

They tweaked an enzyme being used by a bacteria. The bacterias are already out there, evolving away, and may very well come up with a version of the more effective enzyme anyway.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[WDubois]

My record collection!!!!! Nooooooooo!!!

Re: Can't wait for this to get loose

[CrimsonAvenger]

If people would just use their brains, we could eliminate so much plastic waste. We've gone way off the deep-end with putting everything in "disposable" plastic containers.

Of course, most of those "disposable" plastic containers would be trivially recyclable if there weren't laws forbidding recycling of things that had been in contact with...food....

Re: Can't wait for this to get loose

[Quirkz]

If it prevents rugrats, rubber might be an anti-PET.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, it's already loose.

Come on! Don't you read stories about this sort of thing? Some scientist did the experiment a while ago and the results weren't what he wanted so he flushed the petri dishes and started over. Now he took a closer look at the results, found the plastic-eating bacteria and is trying the grab his Nobel Prize before the world ends.
I would imagine there was a moment of disgust that the experiment "failed" again, followed by a moment of wonder when he discovered what the bacteria did, followed by a long, lingering week or so of pants-shitting panic. This was, of course, followed by a spate of bag packing, airline ticket purchases and a proposal for his prize.

We are doomed.

Re: Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

To be accurate: there is a bacterium producing an enzyme (more like two than one as stated in the paper). An (bio-)enzyme is quite hard to produce outside of a living organism as any protein (hints: complexity, folding, post-tanscriptional/translation-modifications). The enzymes themselves are not considered as living but the bacterium is.

Same as the insulin is not living being but the bacteria genetically modified to mass-produce it are living.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

>From just the summary, they tweaked the enzyme, not the bacteria.

As a biologist, without even reading the paper, I can say with 99.9% of certitude that you are wrong.

Tthey most probably modified the code of the gene(s) (DNA) for the protein (the enzyme) and put in back in the bacteria to produce the modified protein (the enzyme). Wild guess, they build a plasmid with the modified gene coding for the protein coupled with genes for resistance to an antibiotic (to select the bacteria transformed - having the plasmid)... Classical bioengineering, we hijack the building machinery of bacteria to produce proteins, far too hard to create well-folded proteins directly in vitro.

Re: Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

What laws are you referring to? I am not aware of, nor will any obvious search of Google, bring up such a "law" forbidding the recycling of plastics that have touched food.

There are some laws in the world against the use of recycled plastics in things that will contact food... that is a different matter. But also totally opposite of what you said.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[wallsg]

If it gets loose, will it eat the bottles on the shelves? Will it also eat the fleece jackets made from recycled PET bottles?

I read that book a long time ago:

Mutant 59: The Plastic-Eaters

Re: Can't wait for this to get loose

[thegarbz]

Many countries don't have such laws and still have an incredible problem with recycling. Convenience trumps recycling every time, and it's hard to beat the convenience of littering let alone throwing something into the first garbage bin you see.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[anegg]

This reminds me of the bacterium designed to break down the room temperature superconductors used on the Ringworld by the Puppeteers to eliminate the threat that they believed the inhabitants of the Ringworld posed to them. I hope that the tech people involved are smart enough to make sure the enzyme is controllable so that it only eats up waste plastics. Too much of our society is plastic-based at this point.

For the edification of those who don't recognize the reference, http://www.larryniven.net/puppeteer/puppol.shtml.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

Nuke it from orbit.

Its the only way to be sure.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

an enzyme can't get loose - maybe the bacteria that produces a plastic eating enzyme but not the enzyme itself

Re: Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

but that also has a higher carbon footprint, transporting creating and recycling the glass all takes more energy than creating, transporting and disposing of plastic. Glass is great when applicable but it is more expensive, fragile and takes more energy. What makes more sense is eco friendly plastics produced from soy or starches that break down in the environment safely.

Re: Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

THIS!
This is the exact reason fast food chains switched from recyclable PS foam to non-recyclable coated paper.

And not just food, but any petroleum products.

Originally meant to prevent the reintroduction of these materials in to the food contact plastic stream, the went over broad in their restrictions.

I did DDG it - seems they are trying to go the other direction now to the point of even requiring PCR content.

Source: me - I worked in recycled plastic research in the early 90's

Re: Can't wait for this to get loose

[Toad-san]

And if one of its products is something edible by bacteria? And the bacteria figure out how to use it! Imagine the damage to the fancy water industry! And the toy soldiers! Noooooo!

Re: Can't wait for this to get loose

[lsatenstein]

What you need is flexible glass. Glass that is soft at room temperature and melts easily with anything above 100C

Re: Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

Just make sure they don't have plastic handles.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[epine]

If the enzyme gets loose? You do know what an enzyme is, don't you?

Ah, you do know that it's an enzyme from an Asian bacterium, don't you?

Of course, we all know in our bones that somehow those Asian bacteria have a biological copy shop for anything out there in the world they want to make their own.

How has this escaped notice by our microbiologists so far? Good question. I'm glad you asked.

Well, we haven't noticed the bacterial copy shop capability yet, because the blueprint is usually available (the original gene) and they prefer to steal that, instead (exception: when the original gene is toxic or incompatible—that's why Darwin provided the copy shop in the first place, because the organism does desperately need this, some of the time).

Now that humans are clever enough to make end-products that outperform bacterial end-products, we can expect to see Asian bacterial copy shops swing into high gear, almost overnight.

The Asian bacteria will own this new, improved enzyme the morning after their first significant exposure. The master-of-all-things-derivative Asian meme demands no less.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[grep -v '.*' *]

You beat me but bouched the link description -- eating plastics, exactly right. But if you click on a random link without examining it you might go to Goatse or someplace... unlike this: The Andromeda Strain (1971)

NOTE: That first link doesn't actually go to Goatse, but it begins down that path with suitable warnings. "Shock sites are what make the internet fun." I suggest that you NOT go there but watch The Andromeda Strain. Really. It's probably on YT -- isn't everything? If not, I'm sure it'll be on NetFlix.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[mnemotronic]

"the bar" for me is Aliens. More of an extension than a remake. Is "Apocalypse Now" considered a remake of "Lord Jim"? John Carpenter's "The Thing" was much cooler than James Arness staggering around in the original. "The Ten Commandments" (DeMille's '56 do-over on his '23 version.) "Ben Hur" (the '59 version). "The Maltese Falcon" (Huston's '41 version).

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[meglon]

Mmmmm.... i do love me a good bug hunt.

Re: Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

The enzyme came from a bacteria. The enzyme was merely improved upon by science. The bacteria is already loose and is already eating PET. Game over if what you are worried about is creatures out in the wild that can eat plastic.

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone ever read the book called "Mutant 59: The Plastic Eaters" ?

Re:Can't wait for this to get loose

[FatdogHaiku]

The summary and the article don't say that, but I have no doubt you are right. It's hard to beat Mother Nature, so let's co-opt her!
No one bothered to link the paper, which is a PDF here:
http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2018/04/16/1718804115.full.pdf
The story did mention that the enzyme was not optimized (do to young age of the whole process no doubt) and suggested a transplant of the mutant enzyme into an “extremophile bacteria” for a greater range of temperature resistance... I can hear Jeff Goldberg saying "Yes Yes, make it hard to kill!

Grammar please

[Anonymous Coward]

"speeded up"? Are we hiring writers and editors at bus stops now?

Re: Grammar please

[Anonymous Coward]

More likely, just editors with English as their second or third language?

Re: Grammar please

[pele]

I was wondering the same thing but came up with an explanation that both are correct; speeded is even correcter but sped up is a modern take on it. So both equally correct.

Re:Grammar please

[Xtifr]

Actually, the traditional (and now very out-of-date) wisdom is that "speeded" should only be used with "up". So your complaint would be silly even if we did still subscribe to thy 19th century grammatical peeves. Forsooth!

http://grammarist.com/usage/sp...

Re:Grammar please

[Anonymous Coward]

Theid of sed SPED, but din wan to confuze you with ur schooling.

Re: Grammar please

[ememisya]

âoeA full life-cycle assessment would be needed to ensure the technology does not solve one environmental problem â" waste â" at the expense of others, including additional greenhouse gas emissions.â

That sounds important. Also no zombies caused by extremely resilient mutant enzymes sounds great :)

There is surely no way this can go wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2368220.Mutant_59

Re:There is surely no way this can go wrong

[john.r.strohm]

"Mutant 59: The Plastic Eaters". I thought it was by Michael Crichton, but apparently not.

Re:There is surely no way this can go wrong

[kelarius]

You're thinking about The Andromeda Strain, which is what came to mind when I heard of this.

Re:There is surely no way this can go wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Crichton knows enough biology to not call normal cellular mitosis "an obscene abrogation of normal order" :)

Re:There is surely no way this can go wrong

[fahrbot-bot]

"Mutant 59: The Plastic Eaters". I thought it was by Michael Crichton, but apparently not.

The book is by Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis from 1972. I've read it and it's pretty good (for its time, anyway) -- things do *not* go well in the world, remember that electrical wiring is insulated with plastic. I usually reference this whenever something like this comes up, but you beat me to it.

Re:There is surely no way this can go wrong

[msk]

Or someone could write about an engineered plague destroying room-temperature superconductors.

(Larry Niven did it.)

Re:There is surely no way this can go wrong

[johnwfran]

Thanks for the tip! Great book... would not have realized it was written in 1972...

The scary thing will be when...

[Anonymous Coward]

Plastics evolve antibodies to fight off plastic-eating bacteria.

Re:The scary thing will be when...

[Tony Isaac]

Then they'll spray this enzyme indiscriminately, killing off all the other plastics until the more highly evolved plastics are the only ones left. After that, they are coming for you and me, brother!

Scientists accidentally sets plastic-eater loose

[franzrogar]

So we have to go back to crystal and paper containers.

One question

[jenningsthecat]

Does the enzyme release CO2, (or any other greenhouse gases), while it's breaking down the plastic?

Re:One question

[Tinsoldier314]

Quick bit of research suggests it breaks down into terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol. http://science.sciencemag.org/.... The former is a precursor to the production of fresh PET https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:One question

[viperidaenz]

If you consider that PET is comprised solely of hydrogen, carbon and oxygen, then yes, it probably does.

Like anything that breaks down hydrocarbons. Including you when you breathe.

Re:One question

[Ichijo]

If so, they could pump that waste CO2 into biodiesel reactors. Plastic to fuel!

Re:One question

[110010001000]

Why does it matter? The threat of plastic is much worse than the threat of CO2. While you guys worry about CO2, I worry about localized polluted waterways and endless landfills leaching toxic materials.

Re:One question

[Obfuscant]

The paper claims that the breakdown products are "environmentally benign". While terephthalic acid doesn't seem to be a problem, ethylene glycol is reasonably toxic. It is also a danger to pets and children because of its sweet taste, and it is commonly found in anti-freeze. Dogs and children will lap the stuff up if they encounter a spill and can die from that.

From the wiki article on "deicing fluid":

Ethylene glycol and propylene glycol are known to exert high levels of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) during degradation in surface waters. Large quantities of dissolved oxygen (DO) in the water column are consumed when microbial populations decompose propylene glycol.[8]:2-23 This process can adversely affect other aquatic life by consuming oxygen needed for their survival.

Airports that use this stuff are required to have capture processes to keep this from the ground water. It doesn't sound so environmentally benign to me. The only reasons these two precursors are less dangerous is because they aren't lumps of (previously thought) poorly-bio-degradable plastic.

I was also going to point to Mutant 59: The Plastic Eaters, but someone beat me to it.

Re:One question

[Anonymous Coward]

Completely backwards. Carbon dioxide affects the global temperature, which in turn affects EVERYTHING. Never mind "localized" waterways, ocean currents can be affected by CO2 emissions, hell the entire world's coastline can be affected. Also, there exist no "endless" landfills; they are spotted around.

This doesn't mean that landfill poses no problems, just that your claim that the localized threat of plastic is "worse than" CO2 is wrong.

Re:One question

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello there Scott Pruitt! Or, more realistically, hello there scott pruitt's botslave!!

Re:One question

[jbengt]

While ethylene glycol is considered toxic and propylene glycol is a food additive, both break down quickly in soils, unless the burden is so great that oxygen deprivation becomes a factor, as noted in the quote above.
Most airports (at least those I've done work for) don't do anything special to contain the runoff from deicing, other than to not discharge it to storm sewers leading to rivers and lakes.
Also, airports don't use ethylene glycol, they use propylene glycol for deicing. (For anti-icing, they use propylene glycol-based fluids modified to have high viscosity at low shear rates and low viscosity at high shear rates: that way it stays on the wings until the plane gets near takeoff speed.)

Re:One question

[bazorg]

No, the only byproduct is plutonium.

Re:One question

[abies]

Dogs and children will lap the stuff up if they encounter a spill [...]

My child must be bit different then - she is not lapping puddles of random stuff near waste recycling plants in hope it might be sweet.

Maybe this is more dangerous for children raised on the progressive, 'no-sweets' diet? Are they desperate enough to lap everything looking for sweets?

Re:One question

[elgatozorbas]

GP is correct: the threat of plastic is much worse than the threat of CO2. For one, the CO2 would disappear naturally through the growth of vegetation. The only reason why CO2 appears to be a bigger problem is that, apparently, we don't care enough to really do something about it. The fundamental problem of plastics,e.g. in the ocean is much bigger than that of CO2.

Re:One question

[Anonymous Coward]

GP is correct: the threat of plastic is much worse than the threat of CO2. For one, the CO2 would disappear naturally through the growth of vegetation.

Lol. Another pruitt botslave. Yeah, CO2 is not a big threat to the planet, as long as you don't care about human survival.

Re:One question

[Anonymous Coward]

what kind of parent doesn't take their kid to a waste recycling plant for a snack *sheesh*

Re:One question

[elgatozorbas]

Lol. Another pruitt botslave. Yeah, CO2 is not a big threat to the planet, as long as you don't care about human survival.

On the contrary. According to Pruitt, CO2 is not a consequence of human activity, whereas I explicitly say people don't care enough to do something, implying that they have an influence. Moreover, *any* of these things is only a problem insofar as one cares about humans. The point you don't seem to be getting is that -at least in principle- fixing CO2 is easy. Just stop using coal fired plants etc. I am very interested to hear your solution -even just theoretically- to remove (micro-)plastics from the environment.

Re:One question

[Anonymous Coward]

On the contrary. According to Pruitt, CO2 is not a consequence of human activity, whereas I explicitly say people don't care enough to do something, implying that they have an influence.

(a) that's not the important part of what you said. you said plastic is much worse which is unrelated to how much people care.
(b) pruitt also thinks people have an influence, he just doesn't think people are the primary cause, which is the standard lukewarmer gospel (same as tillerson)
(c) pruitt has literally said the same thing as you,: “The problem is that for the past decade we’ve been so focused on CO2 that we’ve let a lot of other things slide.”

Just stop using coal fired plants etc.

Lol.
(a) Not just coal, ALL fossil fuels - electricity is easy, transportation and manufacturing like smelters are still huge and we don't have good replacements for those
(b) Must happen immediately, as in tomorrow
(c) neither of the above are even close to deserving the diminutive adjective of "just"

I am very interested to hear your solution -even just theoretically- to remove (micro-)plastics from the environment.

Just as soon as you demonstrate that microplastics are a threat to human civilization of the same magnitude as climate change.

Plastic Mutation

[Anonymous Coward]

So there was a SF book years ago called Mutant 59 the plastic eaters and the disaster that struck after it got out into the wild.

Speeded

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes I know its technically correct but it sounds so weird!

Re:Speeded

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't accept it as correct, so it's not. It's sped up. Having two stops in a row isn't something that's particularly acceptable and is in the process of being dropped from other words. Such as that idiotic sneaked for snuck, dragged for drug and hanged for hung. It's just awkward to insist upon having those stops next to each other.

Invented by accident..

[QuietLagoon]

How many inventions were the result of accidents? Microwave ovens? Telephone?

Re:Invented by accident..

[Scarred Intellect]

Teflon...

Re:Invented by accident..

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, that shit isn't going to stick.

Re:Invented by accident..

[QuietLagoon]

Post-It notes. (3M was going after a very strong adhesive, not the easy-to-release adhesive on the Post-It notes.)

Re:Invented by accident..

[suutar]

penicillin

Re:Invented by accident..

[Anonymous Coward]

Certainly, the Microwave Oven was.

A dude noticed his chocolate bar was melting when he walked in front of the microwave tranmitters used for radar applications...

"In 1945, the specific heating effect of a high-power microwave beam was accidentally discovered by Percy Spencer, an American self-taught engineer from Howland, Maine. Employed by Raytheon at the time, he noticed that microwaves from an active radar set he was working on started to melt a candy bar he had in his pocket." -- Wikipedia.

Re:Invented by accident..

[Anonymous Coward]

Viva Viagra!!!!!

Re:Invented by accident..

[Anonymous Coward]

Barack Obama

Re:Invented by accident..

[Anonymous Coward]

Wonder if he had kids - either before or after?

Re:Invented by accident..

[hcs_$reboot]

How many inventions were the result of accidents? Microwave ovens? Telephone?

Windows 10

Re:Invented by accident..

[someoneOtherThanMe]

vulcanized rubber

This is the precursor

[viperidaenz]

This is the precursor to the great plastic plague of 2020

Re:This is the precursor

[mrbester]

And just as vinyl is making a comeback. It's all a big conspiracy by the music industry, I tell you!

Wrong...

[Archfeld]

So the churches have been wrong all along. The end of things won't be a fiery death but everything dissolving into the classical grey goo syndrome. Imagine if this got loose in a hospital, all the tubes and plastic based equipment dissolving around the patients and doctors.

Re:Wrong...

[nedlohs]

Somehow hospitals have survived the existence of enzymes that eat flesh without the patients and staff all turning to goo. The wooden parts of the buildings have managed not to turn to goo despite wood eating enzymes existing.

You reap what you sow

[ketomax]

Plastic which was born out of an accident is about to die because of another accident..

Enzyme + PET =

[John Napkintosh]

Enzyme + PET equals what exactly? Surely not nothing. Hopefully something harmless.

Re:Enzyme + PET =

[mspohr]

PET is a hydrocarbon so you get H2O and CO2

Re: Scientists accidentally sets plastic-eater loo

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you can also go to Checkers. Not White Castle though. Only stoners go there.

A new weapon..

[Virtucon]

I can see endless military applications.

Re:A new weapon..

[Anonymous Coward]

Biological warfare is typically outlawed under international law. Using biological agents to attack infrastructure rather then directly target humans is nothing new (typically food sources and water sources).

Re:A new weapon..

[WillAffleckUW]

Biological warfare is typically outlawed under international law. Using biological agents to attack infrastructure rather then directly target humans is nothing new (typically food sources and water sources).

Tell Syria and Russia that

Re: A new weapon..

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell Syria to bend over and take it, because the western interests ARE going to build their natural gas pipeline (the real reason for all the 'human rights' handwringing, and support for various sides in the civil war)

What could possibly go wrong?

[argStyopa]

...with breeding plastic destroying bacteria in a world where just about every common item is partially or wholly made of plastic or plastic components?

Nope, I see no issues.

Flesh eating enzyme...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh shit, we altered the enzyme and now it eat's human flesh!

This is fantastic!

[Gravis Zero]

I knew nature was going to catch on eventually (long before the "thousands of years to decay" prediction) and I'm glad it has. Plastics are nice but the half-life of the products they are used in are astonishingly short. My hope is that we will be able to spray trash with a variety of monocelluar critters and it will turn it into various gases that can be harvested and used for something else. Once they have done their job, they'll leave a biosludge and elemental components like metals that can be reclaimed. The sludge will make a great fertilizer.

I hope people realize this is a good thing rather than flailing nonsensically about how their iphone is going to fall apart.

Re:This is fantastic!

[Aristos Mazer]

It breaks down the plastic... into ethylene glycol. Are we sure this is an improvement?

Re:This is fantastic!

[Darkling-MHCN]

This sounds like the blurb you get at the start of a marvel comic, before things go horribly wrong.

Re:This is fantastic!

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew nature was going to catch on eventually (long before the "thousands of years to decay" prediction) and I'm glad it has. Plastics are nice but the half-life of the products they are used in are astonishingly short. My hope is that we will be able to spray trash with a variety of monocelluar critters and it will turn it into various gases that can be harvested and used for something else. Once they have done their job, they'll leave a biosludge and elemental components like metals that can be reclaimed. The sludge will make a great fertilizer.

I hope people realize this is a good thing rather than flailing nonsensically about how their iphone is going to fall apart.

Meh.

Mr Fusion is a better imaginary way of using up garbage.

Re:This is fantastic!

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew nature was going to catch on eventually (long before the "thousands of years to decay" prediction) and I'm glad it has.

Nature had a solution for petroleum based plastics before there were petroleum based plastics. The plasticization process does not meaningfully modify the base oils. You have eaten plasticized dairy oils with no ill effect (beyond maybe some emotional distress that it wasn't the cheese you expected). Deep sea bacteria already feasted on oil leaks from deep sea oil deposites long before humanity started trying to collect oil.

The only issue has been that the bacteria that will eat plastics had been away from where people were throwing plastics.

It's like radioactive waste. The fearmongers will try to scare the populace by saying "this stuff never goes away, it has a half-life of 2000 years!" but the people who know a bit about nuclear chemistry understand that a 2000 year half-life means small quantities are effectively inert in the human scale. It's the short half-lives you need to worry about.

Kill it now!

[AndyKron]

Kill it now! I don't want want retro 8-bit gizmos disappearing into a puddle of bacteria poop!

Too obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

I was thinking of it getting into the bottling plant. A few days should be just long enough to fill em and get them on a truck before they start to go bad :O Either they start to disintegrate when it hits a bump or they make til someone tries to stock the shelves.

Re:Too obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

That'll give a whole new meaning to 'planned obsolescence'...

Re:Too obvious

[jbengt]

When my son was a baby, we tried some biodegradable diapers. Unfortunately, the baby wet them at night and they started biodegrading before we changed them in the morning. Somewhat messy.

Re: Too obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Still that is better than the old days!

In 16th century England, they just stuffed saw dust around old (nasty) rags. And didn't change it for weeks.

If you made it through that you'd probably live to be 70s.

Let me guess

[Anonymous Coward]

One mutant enzyme gets a hold of a plastic bottle containing some radioactive Mountain Dew that got contaminated when it floated too close to the Fukushima nuclear reactor core, mutant enzyme eats same, mutant enzyme grows to 99 katrillion times its normal size, becomes sentient, eats all human and animal life, hikacks Elon Musk's spaceship to Mars, uses it to flee the planet, discovers it can exist in the vacuum of space, escapes the confines of the ship, devours Jupiter and 3 other of the outer planets, and goes on to sow havoc and chaos in the galaxy for many countless 1000's of years, the end.

Do people really not know what "enzyme" means?

[Xtifr]

I think some people are being confused by the use of the term "mutant" in the headline. This is not a creature. It doesn't reproduce. It's a chemical. You can worry about spills, but it's never going to be a plague.

The bacteria it was derived from might become a plague, but that's an already-existing worry, since it's a naturally occurring critter which is already out there in the wild. But this is just stuff. If it "gets loose", it'll just sit there. At worst, it might contaminate the groundwater or something, but that's true of a lot of other chemicals.

Re:Do people really not know what "enzyme" means?

[Anonymous Coward]

Read it all, then comment.

They found this on the Isle of Dogs

[WillAffleckUW]

No, seriously.

Re:They found this on the Isle of Dogs

[Anonymous Coward]

The Isle of Man's Best Friend.

Why not

[julian67]

Why not just burn all that shit? No silly enzymes or science required.

Re:Why not

[Anonymous Coward]

Dioxins.

Re:Why not

[julian67]

So ship it to China or Pakistan and burn it there.

Re:Why not

[slew]

Why not just burn all that shit? No silly enzymes or science required.

The reason they don't just "burn all that shit" is that they are interested in a way to break down the PET back to it's polymer pre-cursors so they can repolymerize it back into plastic again to improve recycling. By recovering the original pre-cursors, they can more effectively recycle the plastic.

The current recycle flow for PET is a bit costly to produce back food-grade plastic (vs simply using virgin material) because of the use of dye, color sorting is required before melting, so often PET is open-loop recycled into lower-grade material like carpet. However, if original pre-cursors can be recovered and isolated, it might be eventually be more economical to do close-loop recycling (clear bottle back to clear bottles) which make it easier to compete with using virgin material...

Of course our recycling rates are pretty low now and virgin material is pretty cheap, so it's hard to see how this would ever work at a scale, but even today we don't "burn all that shit", we open-loop recycle...

Re:Why not

[julian67]

"...even today we don't "burn all that shit", we open-loop recycle"

Nope. I burn it. It sounds dangerous but it isn't. So long as you squish all that shit into the holes in the middle of old tires it is easy to arrange and position as you like. If it's not too windy you can even move it while it's still burning. And when all you have left is some steel wire loops and sticky residue you just flip it up and roll it into the river. Gravity is free and also fully eco.

YOu FAIL IT

[Anonymous Coward]

or mislDead the

Unfortunately ...

[dogsbreath]

... when in contact with a saline environment it produces crystals of "ice-nine"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

What about plastic bags?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we recycle our plastic bags instead of paying 5 cents per for the privilege of using them?

Re:What about plastic bags?

[ledow]

It has to be said... of all the things to moan about, this is the most minor.

Buy sturdy bags. Don't have a problem. Or do what I did for most of my childhood, and which I've seen practised all over the world, most recently in rural Italian stores... which is grab the big cardboard boxes from the back of the store (they used to just have a big area laid out that they put empty packaging into), use those to pack your shopping into for the brief periods of a) putting into your car, b) taking out of your car at home.

Pretty much the plastic bag thing had gotten silly and we were using crappy plastic where a single cardboard box could do ten journeys, better, more manageably, more easily. Then by the time you come to re-use the crappy plastic bags, they were disintegrated, UV-destroyed or just plain torn to pieces and fragile.

To be honest, I still haven't worked out why I'm not just given a box / set of boxes that perfectly fits the trolley/cart when I walk in, then I fill it/them with my goods, and then put them straight in the back of the car. All this packing-and-unpacking nonsense at the checkout/car/home is a total waste of time.

I say this as someone who ALWAYS forgets to take bags, and hence ends up paying for lots of "life" bags (more sturdy, more expensive ones) when I really don't need to. But I guarantee that I've used less plastic in all that time even so, and I have a huge box full of really sturdy re-useable bags to boot... I used them when I moved house months ago.

But everything from small stores in Italy, large supermarkets in London many years ago, to strange oddments stores have had just a huge selection of their empty cardboard boxes by the tills ready for anyone to use in preference to a bag. Why it's not present in the larger stores, or indeed every store, I can't imagine. I can only think that the empty cardboard boxes are worth MORE to the store than giving them away - whether by people paying for bags unnecessarily, or just some recycling subsidy from the producers.

Re:What about plastic bags?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you buy trash bags then? Reusing the thinner, cheaper grocery bags is probably better. Or do you manage to fix all your trash into chip bags? I can also do that, but I can't seal then.

Re:What about plastic bags?

[Anonymous Coward]

I work in a grocery store and we throw all our cardboard into a compactor. When the compactor is full, we tie a bail with wire. This gets picked up by our delivery trucks and eventually goes to recycling. We make money on each bail. People have stolen bails that have been left out on our back dock, hence we don't do that.

The whole "buy a bag thing" should of outright banned plastic period. We have paper and you can bring your own sturdy bags or a box.

Also, you could take all your groceries, put them in the cart, go through checkout, put them back into your cart and then put all the groceries into a box you keep in the trunk of your car. I have a couple customers that do this. My wife did it a couple of times before she got some good bags.

In other news

[Anonymous Coward]

In other news, all major cruise lines are reporting that all onboard plastics are disintegrating, causing major alarm and concerns that the ships might sink as sea.

Re:In other news

[ledow]

It would be really daft to make a ship's hull out of PET - but "sailcloth is typically made from PET fibers also known as polyester or under the brand name Dacron"... be interesting when you have to buy a new sail just the old one was eaten.

But, yes, that is a concern, especially seeing as this enzyme was borrowed from a bacterium that evolved it naturally. It won't be long before another does the same, or this one gets into the wild.

Too Immediate

[SuperKendall]

They could do the same thing with H2SO4

H2SO4 you would notice instantly (if for no other reason than the pilots would be unable to see out of the cockpit), and wouldn't have the supervillian level of diabolical delay before taking effect.

the real story of C D Reimer....

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is the story of creimy the mountain and his royalties!

This story was inspired by cdreimer, the parent poster. The story was written by a visionary on cdreimer birth date.

The story of creimy the mountain explained:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Creimy is a typical mountain who poses for postcards, living with his wife Ethel, a tree, between the cities of Rosamund and Gorman, California. The main features on his mountainous face are two large caves, resembling eyes, and a cliff for a jaw, which moves up and down when he talks, puffing up dust and boulders.
click above link to read more, he even destroyed Edwards Air Force Base just by passing by...

Listen to the audio version here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

"Creimy The Mountain"

includes quotes from Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 in D major (Edward Elgar), Johnny's Theme (Paul Anka), Off We Go Into The Wild Blue Yonder (Crawford), O Mein Papa (Paul Burkhard), Over The Rainbow (Harburg/Arlen), Star-Spangled Banner (Smith/Key), Suite: Judy Blue Eyes (Stephen Stills)

One, two, three

CREIMY the Mountain
CREIMY the Mountain
A regular picturesque
Postcardy mountain
Residing between lovely
Rosamond and Gorman
With his stunning wife ETHELL, A tree! A tree!

CREIMY was a mountain ETHELL was a tree Growing off of his shoulder

CREIMY was a mountain
(CREIMY was a mountain!)
ETHELL was a tree Growing off of his shoulder
(ETHELL was a tree growing off of his shoulder)
(hey, hey hey!)

Creimy had two big
Caves for eyes,
With a cliff for a jaw
That would go up 'n down,
And whenever it did,
He'd puff out some dust,
And hack up a boulder (HACK!) Hack up a boulder (HACK! HACK!)
Hack up a boulder (HACK! HACK! HACK!) Up a boulder

Now, one day, now I believe it was on a Tuesday, a man in a checkered double-knit suit drove up in a large El Dorado Cadillac, leased from BOB SPREEN

("Where the freeways meet in Downey!")

And he laid a HUGE, BULGING ENVELOPE right at the corner of CREIMY THE MOUNTAIN, that was right where his 'foot' was supposed to be.

Now, CREIMY THE MOUNTAIN, he couldn't believe it! All those postcards he'd posed for, for ALL OF THOSE YEARS, and finally, now, AT LAST, his Royalties!

Royalties! Royalties Royalties! Royalty check is in, honey!

Yes, CREIMY THE MOUNTAIN was RICH! Yes, and his eyeball-caves, they widened in amazement, and his jaw (which was a cliff), well it dropped thirty feet!

A bunch of dust puffed out! Rocks and boulders hacked up, (hack! hack!) crushing 'The LINCOLN'!

I gave him the money He acted real funny He hocked up a rock and It TOTALLED my car!

Oh, do you Know any trucks Might be bound for THE VALLEY?
I don't wanna stand here All night in this bar (Dear Lord)

I don't wanna stand here All night in this bar (No shit!)

I don't wanna stand here All night in this bar!

By two o'clock, when the bars are already closed down, CREIMY had broken 'THE BIG NEWS' to ETHELL. And with dust and boulders everywhere, CREIMY, choked with excitement, announced

"ETHELL, we're going on a VACATION!"

Yes, and they WERE going on a vacation! (Oh, and ETHELL, ETHELL, ETHELL, like every little woman, she of course was very excited! She creaked a little bit, and some old birds flew off of her.) CREIMY told ETHELL they were going to Yes! They were going to NEW YORK!

"ETHELL, we're going to New York!"

But first they were gonna stop in LAS VEGAS

It's off to LAS VEGAS to check out the lounges Pull a few handles,
And drink a few beers, (Oh, ETHELL!)

ETHELL, my darling, you know that I love you!
I'm glad we could have a Vacation this year! (Oh, NEET-O!)

Glad we could have a Vacation this year!

They left that night, crunchin' across the Mojave Desert

Re:the real story of C D Reimer....

[Billy the Mountain]

+1

Re: the real story of C D Reimer....

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure every single one of those anonymous posts are written by the same person. Lol

Re: the real story of C D Reimer....

[Anonymous Coward]

Since creimer blew this shithole for YouTube, nipple dick has to write all the comments by himself.

Re: the real story of C D Reimer....

[Anonymous Coward]

This appears to be a wildly disproportionate response to someone posting a few Amazon affiliate links or is there some huge back story I've missed, a spurned lover, perhaps?

Re: the real story of C D Reimer....

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you weren't here last summer when creimer's image got posted on Russian gay websites and his DMCA takedown notices took them down faster than they could be put up. Creimer retaliated by posting Amazon affiliate links to monetize his trolls. Slashdot management even put up Amazon ads once creimer showed how much money they were leaving on the table. Now that creimer has left Slashdot for YouTube, his trolls are pining away for him.

enzyme 'eat'?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean dissolve?

Wake me when they find an enzyme for polystyrene

[eliphalet]

Polystyrene foam is notoriously hard to recycle and a common type of litter and trash.

Some plastic should last a long time

[teeks99]

For example, electric wire insulation... I'm assuming this bacteria will go pretty slowly, not having a negative impact on all the disposable stuff we go through. However, there are lots of plastic uses that are expected to maintain their integrity for decades, in places that can't/won't be checked or replaced.

Uh oh Grey matter alert!

[Sla$hPot]

Lets not release this without understanding the full implications of letting a plastic converting molecule loose in a plastic world.

I think process will go like this

[wanfuse123]

either A) convert back to plastics (not sure how) or B) http://science.sciencemag.org/... ---> ethyl glycol ---> *burn* ---> Carbon Monoxide (a down hill raction) --->https://www.anl.gov/articles/new-leaf-scientists-turn-carbon-dioxide-back-fuel --- > methenol ---> burn in cars

Re:I think process will go like this

[wanfuse123]

http://canada.marssociety.org/... ---to make plastics, someone has suggested

if it eats vinyl ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... then it's back to wax cylinders.

Scientists Accidentally Create...Enzyme That Eats

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop. Stop. Stop.

Do not accidentally create anything that eats unless it's an offspring/budding/what-not of an existing thing that eats similar things.

Oh, and don't do it on purpose until you've been accepted into the Evil League of Evil's apprenticeship program. Research this dangerous, er, I mean useful, should only be done by qualified individuals or under the supervision of a master evil villain.

Fleece is terrible

[Anonymous Coward]

Cancer causing microscopic fibers that embed themselves in the skin? Yes eat away.

Fucking Citation Needed

[Anonymous Coward]

The mutant enzyme takes a few days to start breaking down the plastic -- far faster than the centuries it takes in the oceans

I grew up in the British Channel Islands. Cold water with big tides. Anything, absolutely anything, plastic that was put in the sea around there was gone in no time. Things like soda bottles wouldn't last a month. 5mm Thick buoys and fenders had at most a few years in them before the sea ate holes in them. Centuries it takes in the oceans? Fucking Citation Needed.

Re: Fucking Citation Needed

[oobayly]

That's because the tidal range is huge in that area. The reason plastics break down so quickly is due to abrasion with the boats, moorings, sand, etc, which is exacerbated by the strong tidal flows. We're taking about the plastics breaking down naturally which - as demonstrated by photos of seas full of plastic - *is* slow.

Unless you're suggesting that we dump all our plastic waste in the English channel. It won't affect me as I live near the furthest point from the coast. /s

Re:Fucking Citation Needed

[Anonymous Coward]

The trouble is that it doesn't break them down in the sense that it reuses the material for something else in the ecological system. It breaks the plastic down into smaller pieces. These microscopic plastic particles eventually break down but it takes a really long time.

Just because you cannot see the pieces of plastic doesn't mean that they are not there anymore. In fact, I would say that this is an even bigger problem. Big chunks of plastic can be filtered out and taken to recycling/destruction. Microplastic particles is hard to do that with.

Re: Fucking Citation Needed

[Anonymous Coward]

We're taking about the plastics breaking down naturally which - as demonstrated by photos of seas full of plastic - *is* slow.

No citation. Here's one for *full* biodegradation happening in a few years.

Unless you're suggesting that we dump all our plastic waste in the English channel.

False dichotomy. I'm strongly against polluting just like I'm strongly against liars. Your "photos of seas full of plastic" and the original author's "centuries it takes in the oceans" are both lies. Stop fucking lying.

Re:Fucking Citation Needed

[Anonymous Coward]

These microscopic plastic particles eventually break down but it takes a really long time.

Another one with no citation so here's the same link again. Why are you lying about this? Pollution is bad enough without lies. Stop fucking lying.

Re: Fucking Citation Needed

[phozz bare]

The linked article says nothing about biodegradation. Biodegradation means that a material breaks down into things like CO2, water and minerals. In this case the plastics decompose into styrene trimer and bisphenol-A, these are nasty pollutants known to harm reproduction and cause cancer. So no, plastics do not biodegrade in the sea, and yes, I'd definitely prefer using these enzymes to recycle these plastics rather than dumping them in landfills and oceans.

Re: Fucking Citation Needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Biodegradation means that a material breaks down into things like CO2, water and minerals.

Biodegradation is the disintegration of materials by bacteria, fungi, or other biological means. There are no specific requirements on the output of biodegredation.

Re: Fucking Citation Needed

[phozz bare]

Webster's defines biodegradable as "capable of being broken down especially into innocuous products by the action of living things (such as microorganisms)". The product of plastics decomposing in the sea is definitely not innocuous (harmless), and the National Geographic article says nothing about how the plastics decompose in the ocean (bacteria? corrosion by the salt water?) so neither of us can be sure that it fits either the Webster's or the Wikipedia definition. In any case calling this breakdown of plastics into poisonous chemicals "biodegradation" is quite a stretch.

There are no specific requirements on the output of biodegredation.

Actually there are. The Wikipedia article you linked quotes the EU definition of biodegradation, which requires "the conversion of >90% of the original material into CO2, water and minerals by biological processes within 6 months". Bisphenol-A ain't no mineral.

OOPS!

[Anonymous Coward]

OOPS! Eureka! Science!

Will it dissolve PET rocks?

[CaptainDork]

Sorry, not sorry for exploiting low hanging fruit.

Re:Wake me when they find an enzyme for polystyren

[technosaurus]

I assume you mean expanded polystyrene aka styrofoam... toss it all in a vat of acetone to disolve then reuse it.

Ice-9, here we come!

[Anonymous Coward]

RIP, Kurt Vonnegut.

Mutant 59: The Plastic Eater

[Anonymous Coward]

Title of a book from the â70s.

Spoiler: It did not end well.

Wasn't this already in a movie?

[zennling]

Didn't The Andromeda Strain have something similar?

judi online

[Anonymous Coward]

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Technological problems

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm probably much older than the usual denizens of this site and I remember the detergent scare of the 1950's. Basically detergents (Tide was the number one brand) contaminated local streams and rivers and did not readily decompose. A few years later Tide changed its formula and the problem disappeared. The bottom line is that problems caused by technology have technological fixes. Sadly problem cause by human nature like greed, fear and hatred are unsolvable.

Re:Technological problems

[cstacy]

I'm probably much older than the usual denizens of this site and I remember the detergent scare of the 1950's. Basically detergents (Tide was the number one brand) contaminated local streams and rivers and did not readily decompose. A few years later Tide changed its formula and the problem disappeared. The bottom line is that problems caused by technology have technological fixes.

I remember when a novel solution to excess Tide was popularized on the Internet a few weeks ago. It has the wonderful side-effect of population control by self-(de)-selection!

(Here I am assuming that the Tide Pod Challenge is not at the root of the "accidental" creation of mutant plastic-munching Enzyme Overlords...)

Anybody have a paper URL? DOI is bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, the only place with a proper DOI link is phys.org but their link is busted, searching PNAS for the paper name comes up empty.

Is there any open access to the paper?

What's the resulting soup?

[mnemotronic]

“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,” said McGeehan

That's currently a wish. What are the current byproducts, are they toxic and can they be economically reprocessed into something? The key word here is "economically". It it costs less, then any downside with health or environmental issues take a backseat.

Ob. IFO / WCP

[cstacy]

I for one would like to welcome our plastic munching Enzyme accidental Overlords. What could possibly go wrong?

Can it break down bottles

[cnaumann]

Better than fire?

Test in Australia first

[Anonymous Coward]

This country has loads of experience with foreign animals. After rabbits, foxes, cane toads, and camels I am excited to see what will become of these bacteria.

Excreations

[JimSadler]

So what waste products are created by the enzyme? Is the waste easily dealt with or have any value as a product of the reaction?

Re:Excreations

[phozz bare]

“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,” said McGeehan. “It means we won’t need to dig up any more oil and, fundamentally, it should reduce the amount of plastic in the environment.”

From the 'This Won't Turn Out Bad' department

[Anonymous Coward]

Up next: Ice-9

Sounds like the John Barnes novels...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Daybreak Series: Directive 51, Daybreak Zero, and The Last President.
Something (virus?) eats any type of plastic or petroleum-based material. Things get BAD.

Is creimer a transsexual????

[Anonymous Coward]

All the signs are there.
He really really enjoys pretending to be a woman just doing what he thinks are normal 30 year old girl things.
Most of all though, FatCashewsLovesMe is obsessed with him, and FatCashewsLovesMe is adamant that he loves all trannies.
Can FatCashews divinely inspired love of trannies see straight through Chris's blubbery exterior to the transsexual inside?

It's bad. Worse than they realize...

[iq145]

http://www.newser.com/story/19... http://www.newser.com/story/24... http://www.newser.com/story/20... http://www.newser.com/story/23... http://www.newser.com/story/21... http://www.newser.com/story/23... http://www.onegreenplanet.org/... Watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... Then sign this petition: https://www.thepetitionsite.co...

Changing my Holiday Plans

[Anonymous Coward]

Definitely not getting on a plane now that plastic eating bacteria is around. Far too risky! Think I'll holiday in England this year and spend a nice quiet afternoon at Byfield Pier.

-- Toby Wren

Microplastics

[jtgd]

Is there a way to use this to deal with microplastics? Bottles are easy since they're all in one place, but the micro stuff is all over the environment.