Scientists Coax The Plastic-Eating Enzyme For More Efficiency

Written By Vaishali Aggarwal

Scientists in Britain and the United States say they have engineered a plastic-eating enzyme that could help in the fight against pollution. The enzyme is able to digest polyethylene terephthalate, or PET — a form of plastic patented in the 1940s and now used in millions of tons of plastic bottles. PET plastics can persist for hundreds of years in the environment and currently pollute large areas of land and sea worldwide.

According to VOA, "Recently, the world was stunned to learn that an island of mostly plastic trash, floating in the Pacific Ocean, grew to the size of France, Germany and Spain combined. Because plastics take centuries to decompose, could civilization someday choke in it? Scientists at Britain's University of Portsmouth say they may have found a way to speed up the decomposition of plastics".

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