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June 14, 2022
Is Plastic Packaging Biodegradable After All?
Is Plastic Packaging Biodegradable After All?
Leipzig specialists came to find an enzyme that can quickly break down PET, the most generally produced plastic in the world. While searching through a pile of compost at a Leipzig cemetery, Christian Sonnendecker and his research group found seven enzymes that they had never seen. They were looking for proteins that could eat PET plastic, which is typically used for bottles of water and groceries such as grapes. The lab at Leipzig University Sonnendecker mentioned that they were not expecting much when they took the samples back to the lab. It was only just the second compost they had searched through and thought that PET-eating compounds were rare. Luckily enough for them, in one of the samples they found an enzyme called PHL7. They tested it out and in just one day the enzyme disintegrated an entire piece of plastic.
To learn more about PHL7 click here
To learn more about PHL7 click here
June 14, 2022
Hungry Superworms Help Recycle Plastic
Plastic has been a popular source in the lab at University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. A species of worm known as Zophonas morio ‘superworm’ takes on the liking of polystyrene that they can eat multiple times a day without having any effect on them. The scientists in the lab have come to find that these superworms actually can eat through polystyrene thanks to a bacterial enzyme in their gut. They took on several feeding trials with these superworms and found that after 24 hours they started eating through the polystyrene chucks. These superworms had lived through this plastic they were all consuming, but had also gained marginal weight. Implying that these worms can actually obtain energy from the polystyrene.
To read more click here
To read more click here
July 5, 2022
RecyClass Publishes New Guidelines and Design Book Defining the Recyclability of Plastic Packaging
Belgian non-profit, RecyClass has published new guidelines that define when plastic is considered recyclable. These guidelines ultimately aim for a closed-loop recycling system for plastic packaging, where new plastic packaging is solely comprised of old, recycled plastic packaging. According to RecyClass, a key part of the waste hierarchy is design. In their newly released design book, they have provided a reliable means of verifying that components are fully recyclable. RecyClass’ guidelines are currently available for more that 15 different types of plastic packaging. To read more about RecyClass’ recycling guidelines, click here.
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