Teen Decomposes Plastic Bag in Three Months
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- NathanNice
from: http://www.wired.com/wiredscienc…Plastic takes thousands of years to decompose — but 16-year-old science fair contestant Daniel Burd made it happen in just three months.
The Waterloo, Ontario high school junior figured that something must make plastic degrade, even if it does take millennia, and that something was probably bacteria.
(Hey, at between one-half and 90 percent of Earth’s biomass, bacteria’s a pretty safe bet for any biological mystery.)
The Record reports that Burd mixed landfill dirt with yeast and tap water, then added ground plastic and let it stew. The plastic indeed decomposed more quickly than it would in nature; after experimenting with different temperatures and configurations, Burd isolated the microbial munchers. One came from the bacterial genus Pseudomonas, and the other from the genus Sphingomonas.
Burd says this should be easy on an industrial scale: all that’s needed is a fermenter, a growth medium and plastic, and the bacteria themselves provide most of the energy by producing heat as they eat.
The only waste is water and a bit of carbon dioxide.Amazing stuff. I’ll try to get an interview with this young man who may have managed to solve one of the most intractable environmental dilemmas of our time. And I can’t help but wonder whether his high school already had its prom. If he doesn’t get to be king, there’s no justice in this world.
- trooperbill0
this news is OLD!
- GeorgesII0
I'm pretty sure if we go missing, the earth will find a way to recycle us.
doesn't plastic comes from petroleum and natural gas which comes from decomposition...
give it a 1000 years and there won't be a trace of us.
- mydo0
there still still be castles.
- not true, without any renovating, this would be a ruin.
the piramids and other ancient buildings are made to last.GeorgesII - will stillmydo
- Hahahah will not. Frost and vegetation can take solid buildings apart in 100's of years, often much less.Horp
- Constant maintenance is what keeps them from crumbling.Horp
- looks l ike the Castle in Monty Python's fart in your general direction scenevaxorcist
- not true, without any renovating, this would be a ruin.
- Horp0
'Plastic' is about as focussed a descriptor as 'vehicle'. There are all kinds of plastics, made from all kinds of things fused with all kinds of other things. Chances of this being anything more than one method of disposing of one particular type of plastic (and therefore not economically viable as a solution) is remote.
Polythene is the big problem, and polythene isn't plastic. What about silica plastics... every single nappie/diaper contains a big lump of that and it bears no resemblance to polythene.
This is just another media salve that makes out a problem is solved, when in fact the problem is that we create and use too much plastic to begin with.
- ++janne76
- you are such a fucking know-it-all, horp. why did you become an illustrator? you should be a librarian! ;)janne76
- Amenstyleplus_amillion
- GeorgesII0
yeah, go dissolve this shit
- Where is that?sinbad
- looks like funjanne76
- in the middle of the pacific. a plastic pile the size of texas. Largely japanese refuse.baseline_shift
- Morning after the night before at my house. Hoooooooo!!!5timuli
- kelpie0
well if this guy really has done this, then all the scientists concerned with this problem over the last few decades have had a massive blind spot and shot be kicked out as charlatans.
I think more likely they've tried this in all kinds of laboratory experiments already and its not actually that good, overall
- co20
Tough Crowd
- janne760
for some reason i keep reading:
"Teen Decomposes In Plastic Bag.."
- canuck0
But what about the logo?
- roundabout0
I want a Fucking Lightsaber See Do you SEE.
- benfal990
when you copy-paste a texte from a website you should put it between ".."
otherwise YOU'RE A PIRATE!