Plastic-eating enzyme is a boost for recycling

BRITISH scientists have come up with a way to greatly improve recycling.

When plastic bottles – made out of the most valuable clear plastic – are recycled, they are made into lower quality plastics. So old water bottles end up as carpets, or construction materials or even fleeces – and manufacturers have to make new plastic bottles out of oil.

But a breakthrough by chemists has created an enzyme that can break the clear plastic into its basic chemical parts.

It means that recycled plastic can be made into top grade plastic again. Scientists at the University of Portsmouth and the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The breakthrough was based on the chance discovery of a bacterium at a reprocessing plant in Japan that had evolved to eat plastic.

The scientists analysed the structure of the enzyme the bacteria used – and altered its structure – improving its effectiveness.