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By Razi Beresin-Scher, ODP Contributing Writer According to a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers have engineered a new “super enzyme” that breaks down recycled plastic 6-times faster than previously possible, CNN and The New York Times reported. The super-enzyme is designed to break down polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which […]
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Researchers at Carbios, a French company, report in the Journal Nature that they’ve “engineered an enzyme that can convert 90% of that same plastic back to its pristine starting materials” and they are working to open a demonstration plant next year. The enzyme breaks down plastic all the way into a recyclable form — the company, in collaboration with Pepsi and L’Oréal, hopes to have market scale production within 5 years.
Why This Matters: 70 million tons of Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is produced annually.
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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is proposing to loosen restrictions on the disposal of the waste from nuclear power plants to allow municipal landfills to take it, thus lowering costs for the aging nuclear plants.
Why This Matters: Who wants nuclear waste in their municipal landfill?
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The government of Canada announced this week that it will ban many single-use plastic items by 2021 and also plans to make companies that manufacture or sell plastic products take responsibility for recycling their plastic waste. According to CBC News, the government is likely to follow the European Union, which voted last March to ban plastic items for which market alternatives exist — such as single-use plastic cutlery and plates — and items made of oxo-degradable plastics, such as bags.
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As we have reported, China has stopped accepting U.S. trash for recycling, which leaves cities in a bind and many have had to cut back or stop recycling altogether. According to The New York Times, hundreds of cities across the country have had to drastically alter their recycling programs or cancel their programs amid increasing turmoil in global scrap markets. Fiona Ma, the Treasurer of the State of California, put it bluntly, telling The Times, “We are in a crisis moment in the recycling movement right now.”
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Some of the world’s biggest consumer product brands — Pepsi, Nestlé, Unilever, and Proctor & Gamble — announced yesterday at the World Economic Forum that they have teamed with N.J. based company, TerraCycle, to deliver sustainability the old fashioned way, in re-usable containers. The company will bring back the “milkman model,” where the company owns the package and delivers it to consumers at the same time it picks up empty containers, and then those containers will be washed, refilled and restocked for delivery to another customer.
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