Plastic waste could be a thing of the past thanks to new PET-eating enzyme

Plastic waste dumped in landfill could be cleared sooner than expected, after engineers developed an enzyme that can break it down in just a few hours. Millions of tons of plastic is left abandoned every year, pilling up in landfills and pollution the land and waterways - typically taking centuries to degrade. A team from the University of Texas in Austin created a new enzyme variant that can supercharge recycling on a large scale, reducing the impact of plastic pollution. The work focusing on PET (polyethylene terephthalate), which is a polymer found in most consumer plastic including bottles, packaging and some textiles. The enzyme was able to complete a'circular process' of breaking down the plastic into smaller parts and chemically putting it back together in as little as 24 hours. They've called it FAST-PETase (functional, active, stable, and tolerant PETase), developed from a natural PETase that allows bacteria to degrade and modify plastic.