Technocrat

16-Year-Old Engineers Plastic-Eating Bacteria

President4242
Wed Jun 11 09:39:00 -0700 2008
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A 16-year-old kid in Canada, Daniel Burd, followed through on a remarkably intuitive and extremely scientific set of experiements- to find a bacteria that is EXTREMELY effective in eating those stupid thin-film polyethylene bags that are a large part of the non-recycleable litter in first world nations.

The Register (who else) is a wonderful article that also references phage-therapy antibacterial methods and the lack of this story on the BBC, heralds young Daniel Burd's discovery as one heck of an eco-discovery. He's achieved (admittedly in the lab, under controlled conditions similar to a homebrewer making beer) an amazing 42% reduction in weight of plastic over 6 weeks. Based on this, he reckons that anybody can have a 5 gallon METAL bucket of these buggies or three, and break down the bags at home- with each bag disappearing within 3 months of depositing in the fermenter.

Of course, one could point out that this 16-year-old probably didn't use proper isolation techniques to keep his buggies out of the environment - but all the strains he worked with he found in the local landfill to begin with, and he did, after all, keep them in a sealed container for the first 6 weeks while feeding them ONLY garbage bags to isolate the final four strains.

Pedantry

Beryllium Sphere(r)
Wed Jun 11 11:27:11 -0700 2008
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Polyethylene, not polystyrene.

Pedantry
President4242
Wed Jun 11 11:42:41 -0700 2008
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Thanks- I thought that looked wrong, but I thought it was my misspelling.  Maybe Shannon's form of dyslexia is getting into my head too- a spelling checker is no good for her because she gets the meanings of words mixed up.

Luckily, I'm also an editor- I can fix this.

underground oil

zogger
Wed Jun 11 11:51:28 -0700 2008
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Sure would become an interesting planet if these plastic eating bacteria got loose way down below where all the old dino doo is.

underground oil
Beryllium Sphere(r)
Wed Jun 11 11:56:15 -0700 2008
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There are crude oil eating bacteria, I guess they must need light or oxygen or something since we still have crude oil deposits.

underground oil
rubycodez
Wed Jun 11 12:12:32 -0700 2008
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actually, most oil produced over history has migrated to the surface (lighter than rock or water) and been eaten by bacteria.  special conditions must exist for it to be trapped underground.  And in the "oil window", the depths that have the right temperature to form or keep oil (without either so hot it cracks it into gas or too low it just stays kerogen), where temperatures are from 60 to 120 degrees C (150 to 250 degrees F) it's too hot for most bacteria.

 

http://www.answers.com/topic/petroleum?cat=technology

Pedantry
rubycodez
Wed Jun 11 11:58:00 -0700 2008
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that would be a great experiment for another kid to do, find bug that eats the polystyrene, can feed it packing material and foam peanuts and cd cases and ring-holders for cans.

 

funny there is a recycling "resin identification code", 6, for it but it isn't recycled, not economical.

Pedantry
Michael Smith
Wed Jun 11 15:16:57 -0700 2008
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As long as it doesn't take up a liking for plastic seals in aircraft life support systems.

Pedantry
John Dalton
Wed Jun 11 16:17:32 -0700 2008
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My local council tells us to put all numbered plastics (1-7) in recycling.  Presumably they are recycling it all.  I guess there is a possibility they are dumping some but getting people in the groove for the future, when they can recycling everything.

Pedantry
rubycodez
Thu Jun 12 08:43:26 -0700 2008
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last time I checked only two types were being recycled in my area, though maybe that's changed in last two years

we need a recycling center in the area that takes the other kinds, or maybe we just need to outlaw things like the foam peanuts and packing, there are biodegradable alternatives (actually, the starch based ones are even edible!)

Pedantry
Charles E Hill
Wed Jun 11 16:57:50 -0700 2008
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U.S. EPS recycling info and locations can be found here: http://www.epspackaging.org/info.html

Nothing in Illinois, so you can mail it back to them if you want, or take a jaunt up to Wisconsin.

Keep in mind this is Expanded PolyStyrene (peanuts, etc.) not Extruded PolyStyrene (XPS) like egg cartons, meat trays, etc.

waste of money and the 99.999% rule

rubycodez
Thu Jun 12 06:45:20 -0700 2008
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hah, since no one else is doing it around here the effort and money spent would be pointless and make no difference in volume of material going into landfill.  so, I won't do it.

 

I'm one of those people that doesn't do things for mere "feel good" or "raise awareness" reasons (i.e., bending over far backward to blow sunshine up my own keister).

16-Year-Old Engineers Plastic-Eating Bacteria
Alan
Wed Jun 11 21:11:32 -0700 2008
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stupid thin-film polyethylene bags that are a large part of the non-recyclable litter in first world nations.

And an even bigger part of the non-recyclable waste in Third World countries. Not that many Third-World countries recycle much, though you might see some very poor people picking through the waste to find stuff they can sell for a few cents or eat.

But in countries like Thailand or Indonesia, a generation ago food was packaged in banana leaves or perhaps paper. It was casually discarded and rotted down pretty quickly. Now polyethylene is almost universally used, but people still drop it anywhere, and it blows around, floats on waste water, or is burnt and releases toxic fumes. Many watercourses, and the ocean itself, are clogged with huge drifts of plastic bags that have floated down the drains and rivers. Sometimes the local beaches in Hong Kong are a soup of floating plastic, local and flushed down the Pearl River from China.

Title

Charles E Hill
Thu Jun 12 09:18:20 -0700 2008
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In all honesty, and in light of prior discussions on this subject here, the title should really be "16-Year-Old DISCOVERS Plastic-Eating Bacteria", as opposed to "engineers".

He didn't make it, he isolated it from samples found in the wild.

Title
President4242
Fri Jun 13 15:35:04 -0700 2008
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Well I suppose it's better than my original "Welcome to Thomas Lord's Nightmare", I think it was.

 

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