Scientists find bacteria that eats material, turns it into usable plastic
By Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience managing editor
Updated: 5:57 p.m. ET March 7, 2006
There's an old joke that if you were reincarnated, you might want to come back as a Styrofoam cup.
Why? Because they last forever. Ba-dum-bum.
Despite being made 95 percent of air, Styrofoam plastic's manufactured immortality has posed a problem for recycling efforts. More than 3 million tons of the durable material is produced every year in the United States, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Very little of it is recycled.
Help may come from bacteria that have been found to eat Styrofoam material and turn it into usable plastic. This is the stuff recycling dreams are made of: Yesterday's cup could become tomorrow's plastic spoon.
Kevin O’Connor of University College Dublin and his colleagues heated polystyrene foam, the generic name for Styrofoam plastic, to convert it to styrene oil. The natural form of styrene is in real peanuts, strawberries and a good steak. A synthetic form is used in car parts and electronic components.
Anyway, the scientists fed this styrene oil to the soil bacteria Pseudomonas putida, which converted it into biodegradable plastic known as PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoates).
PHA can be used to make plastic forks and packaging film. It is resistant to heat, grease and oil. It also lasts a long time. But unlike Styrofoam plastic, PHA biodegrades in soil and water.
Bacteria continue to devour our plastics, metals and textiles along with our damn food.
At least this shows up the Luddite minds of some environmentalists who believe "artificial" and "natural" are very distinct terms. It also shows up those idiot Creationists too, unless God made these cups before resting too in the garden of Eden. Is there nothing these microbes can't do?
Presumably, we'll soon be able to engineer bacteria which are far more efficient than the naturally occurring ones. Currently, however, is it feasible to farm Pseudomonas putida to eat our styrofoam? I'm envisioning a vat into which you dump styrofoam cups and PHA trickles out the bottom.
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Put it this way. You know when you dig soil and you get that nice freshly dug smell? That's Pseudomonas. To say it is abundant is to say water exists in a fair quantity on Earth.
Admiral Valdemar wrote:Put it this way. You know when you dig soil and you get that nice freshly dug smell? That's Pseudomonas. To say it is abundant is to say water exists in a fair quantity on Earth.
So we just ... bury ... the ... trash . . . oh. So it'd be enough to merely bury the styrofoam waste and harvest the PHA from the ground after a suitable amount of time?
A Government founded upon justice, and recognizing the equal rights of all men; claiming higher authority for existence, or sanction for its laws, that nature, reason, and the regularly ascertained will of the people; steadily refusing to put its sword and purse in the service of any religious creed or family is a standing offense to most of the Governments of the world, and to some narrow and bigoted people among ourselves.
Admiral Valdemar wrote:Put it this way. You know when you dig soil and you get that nice freshly dug smell? That's Pseudomonas. To say it is abundant is to say water exists in a fair quantity on Earth.
So we just ... bury ... the ... trash . . . oh. So it'd be enough to merely bury the styrofoam waste and harvest the PHA from the ground after a suitable amount of time?
No - if it were that easy, styrofoam would be considered biodegradeable.
As the article mentions, the stuff has to be converted into styrene oil before Pseudomonas can eat it.
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wolveraptor wrote:So...what do we do with all the plastic then?
Golly, I don't know! What the hell use is plastic, anyway?
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wolveraptor wrote:So...what do we do with all the plastic then?
Golly, I don't know! What the hell use is plastic, anyway?
I mean what do we do after it's used as spoons, car doors and other related shit. How do we "recycle" or store it? My point was that it doesn't change the problem of finding somewhere to put our junk. It just converts it into something else.
And just so you know, I was expecting a smartass comment like yours. I see all and know all. So don't fuck wi'me boy.
wolveraptor wrote:So...what do we do with all the plastic then?
Golly, I don't know! What the hell use is plastic, anyway?
I mean what do we do after it's used as spoons, car doors and other related shit. How do we "recycle" or store it? My point was that it doesn't change the problem of finding somewhere to put our junk. It just converts it into something else.
And just so you know, I was expecting a smartass comment like yours. I see all and know all. So don't fuck wi'me boy.
Biodegradable plastics turn into organic material which, shockingly, there's alot of in the ground.
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Anyway, the scientists fed this styrene oil to the soil bacteria Pseudomonas putida, which converted it into biodegradable plastic known as PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoates).
PHA can be used to make plastic forks and packaging film. It is resistant to heat, grease and oil. It also lasts a long time. But unlike Styrofoam plastic, PHA biodegrades in soil and water.
So this is almost, but not quite, the Andromeda strain?
Um, I'm afraid to say this for fear of sounding incredibly stupid, but whatever. I remember when I was young that you could "melt" a styrofoam cup using nail polish remover. Does this method cause more problems (CO2 etc.), or did it simply get rid of all the air in the styrofoam, leaving just the plastic?
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Ninja of the North wrote:Um, I'm afraid to say this for fear of sounding incredibly stupid, but whatever. I remember when I was young that you could "melt" a styrofoam cup using nail polish remover. Does this method cause more problems (CO2 etc.), or did it simply get rid of all the air in the styrofoam, leaving just the plastic?
Nail polish remover is acetone, which is rather toxic.
"If one needed proof that a guitar was more than wood and string, that a song was more than notes and words, and that a man could be more than a name and a few faded pictures, then Robert Johnson’s recordings were all one could ask for."
Ninja of the North wrote:Um, I'm afraid to say this for fear of sounding incredibly stupid, but whatever. I remember when I was young that you could "melt" a styrofoam cup using nail polish remover. Does this method cause more problems (CO2 etc.), or did it simply get rid of all the air in the styrofoam, leaving just the plastic?
Both. Vapours of the nail-polish remover (acetone) are toxic and a greenhouse gas.
Besides, now you have polystyrene dissolved in acetone, and when the acetone evaporates you still have polystyrene (though in a solid lump or film, not in a foam). I guess it could be refabricated at that point.
Regards,
Brett Evill
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Though they do sometimes put silly articles in the April 1st issue, it's usually clear that it's a silly article. Like, instead of saying it was bacteria they would say they had discovered it's actually edible.
