Tue Feb 04 00:00:00 UTC 2025: ## Scientists Race Against Time to Biodegrade Billions of Tonnes of Plastic Waste
**Bengaluru, India – February 4, 2025** – The global plastic pollution crisis is spurring innovative research into biological solutions to break down the vast quantities of plastic waste accumulating in the environment. Scientists are exploring various approaches, including using engineered enzymes and bacteria, to tackle this pressing environmental challenge.
Structural biologist Kavyashree Manjunath, founder of Apratima Biosolutions, has developed an enzyme that degrades 90% of PET plastic waste in just 17 hours. This significantly faster degradation compared to naturally occurring enzymes could revolutionize the PET recycling industry. Manjunath’s company is working on increasing the enzyme’s efficiency and reducing its cost.
Other researchers are exploring the use of microbes to break down a wider range of plastics. Sukanya Punthambaker and Vaskar Gnyawali, co-founders of Breaking Inc., discovered a bacterium capable of degrading PET, polyolefins, and polyamides, although the process currently takes 22 months. They are now focusing on identifying and optimizing the relevant enzymes to accelerate the process.
Professor Jon Pokorski of the University of California San Diego is taking a different approach, incorporating heat-resistant bacterial spores into biodegradable thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU). While this method currently takes about five months to degrade 90% of the TPU, Pokorski highlights its scalability advantage over enzyme-based solutions. However, regulatory hurdles regarding the use of bacteria in plastics remain a potential concern.
Biomolecular engineer Nathan Crook from North Carolina State University is attaching PET-degrading enzymes to a fast-growing bacteria to enhance degradation speed. His research focuses on evolving the bacteria to further improve its plastic-eating capabilities.
Despite the various approaches, challenges remain. These include optimizing enzyme reusability, handling large volumes of waste, and ensuring enzymes can degrade various types of PET, including highly crystalline forms found in bottles. While some companies, like the French firm Carbios, are making progress with highly efficient enzymes, scaling up production and securing funding are significant obstacles.
Scientists emphasize the urgent need for solutions, highlighting the possibility of non-profit organizations and governmental bodies playing a role in large-scale plastic cleanup efforts. The race is on to find efficient and scalable biological solutions to tackle the global plastic pollution crisis before it overwhelms our planet.
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