Boy discovers microbe that eats plastic | Hacker News Reader

Boy discovers microbe that eats plastic

mnn.com

50 pointsiamelgringo14 comments

This is how "Mutant 59: The Plastic Eaters" http://www.amazon.com/Mutant-59-Plastic-Eaters-Kit-Pedler/dp... started, a researcher who wants to clean up oil spills and plastic trash has developed a microbe the eats plastic that is accidentally released into the sewers of London.

Old? not sure, but probably what I've seen on reddit a few years ago.

Very great read, none-the-less.

Wired story from May 2008:

Teen Decomposes Plastic Bag in Three Months http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/05/teen-decomposes/

And that's also not entirely right as these microbes were known before the the kid "discovered" them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylon-eating_bacteria

But Teen discovers world saving tech is too good a story to let reality get in the way.

Someone correct me if I am wrong here, but wouldn't this same selective breeding process happen naturally in any waste area enriched with plastics? (Bacteria will reproduce to the extent that they can metabolize the plastic.) The fact that plastics in landfills haven't disappeared seems to indicate that optimal bacteria in the wild simply don't eat plastic that fast.

The idea is that he isolated the bacteria and identified conditions (i.e. temperatures) where the bacteria are more effective.

If you increase the population of a natural agent and modify the environment, then you should be able to significantly speed up the decomposition of plastics.

Very interesting. Perhaps the article should be titled "boy discovers conditions under which bacteria eat plastic". It still seems like introducing the new bacteria into the environment would be pointless, though. If the conditions in the landfill are left as they are now, I imagine the new bacteria would evolve back into what is presently optimal. If we modify the conditions, these new strains of bacteria would evolve on their own anyway... I guess I am assuming there are no local nash equilibria in the competition between different strains.

It's rather simple to modify the environment of the bacteria, normally plastic in landfills is surrounded by refuse of all different kinds, like paper, metal and the rest of the crap of modern civilization.

The key here would be to select out the plastics that these bacteria thrive on and seed the entire mound with these bacteria. I'm assuming the reaction will naturally be exothermic, which a sufficiently large bacterial density mixed with the naturally insulation properties of plastic should help the pile get near optimal temperature on its own.

However, there are obviously other factors. Do the bacteria release chemicals that are poisonous to themselves? Does the pile need good ventilation? Does it need sunlight or water? Petri dishes and shreds of plastic bags are a good start, but a lot of other factors need to be worked out before we're going to start breaking down enough plastic to matter.

I'm not sure it makes sense to say that he "discovered" the microbe.

Isn't it more like he "created" it?

I don't think he created it, he selected the best performers of an apparently existing species and bred them.

Well, right. That's how you go about creating an organism.

The fact is, there were no bacteria that did what his bacteria does (degrade plastic quickly.) Now there is, as a result of his intention and actions.

I'd call that creation.

Take it as you will.. A story.

We change our own oil in our vehicles. We save it in oil cans for either burning on a fire or pouring along with gasoline down a hornet hole. We know it's "Bad for the environment" but we do it.

One year, we decided to re-roof our house. Considering it was 2500 sq ft, it was an arduous job. Now, for those that know about roofing, you use tar paper, which is asbestos with really thick petroleum tar (think super thick motor oil). One evening, we left a half of a roll lying outside cause we were too damned tired of taking it off the raised porch. It was on concrete, and not the grass.

The next morning (we started about 9am), the roll of tar paper was crawling - literally. There were hundreds of thousands of ants milling about everywhere. We go to shake them off, and lots of egg sacs fall out. But along with the white egg sacs, we notice that the inside of the roll is now pure white fibers. The ants ATE the petroleum tar.

We've noticed similar events, but never saw it happen over the course of 12 hours. We then tested it later with used motor oil... they ate it up too.

It just tells me that whenever nature creates something (petroleum), it also creates something to eat it. And sometimes nature creates stuff to eat man made stuff.

I don't think any serious research ever posited that nature can't survive the after-effects of human activity.

The issue is that if we allow motor oil, lead, mercury, etc to become part of the ecosystem, then nature will no longer be friendly to -us-.

Consider that we already live in a world where one must ration their fish intake for fear of mercury poisoning.

Hmm..news.. There thousands types of plastics, some are well known to be biodegradable since 1960-s. For example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyhydroxybutyrate.

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