Usually, it takes hundreds of years for plastic to break down naturally, but scientists from Germany have now discovered a highly efficient enzyme that degrades PET in record time. The discovery ...

scientists have found a new enzyme that eats plastic in less than a day, setting a record. The enzyme in question is called polyester hydrolase (PHL7) and was recently found at a German cemetery ...

Dr Christian Sonnendecker and his team discovered an enzyme that breaks down PET plastic at record speed. From a fruit punnet made of PET, only the dye and fragments of cutting edges remained ...

A new type of plastic made directly from organic plant waste has been created by scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of ...

Because there is so much plastic in our waters, scientists have created a new marine habitat called the plastisphere. Not all ...

Scientists in Australia who are trying to find ways to help the environment have some positive news to report: the larvae of an insect called the darkling beetle has a taste for Styrofoam, a material ...

Human saliva may contain an enzyme ... of MG8 in plastic recycling and functionalization, the team acknowledge that MG8, like other PET hydrolases, still needs some work. For the time being ...

Major scientific discoveries this month include results from studies throughout our solar system, within the human body, and ...

While other research has suggested that superworms, as well as smaller worms, can eat and digest plastic, Rinke and his team’s paper, published in Microbial Genomics, identifies for the first time ...

Next, the team used a technique called metagenomics to analyze the microbial gut community and find which gene-encoded enzymes were involved in degrading the plastic. One way to put the findings ...

The long-term goal is to engineer enzymes to degrade plastic waste in recycling plants through mechanical shredding, followed by enzymatic biodegradation. “Superworms are like mini recycling plants, ...

Scientists at Australia's University of Queensland have now discovered that superworms -- the larvae of Zophobas morio darkling beetles -- are eager to dine on the substance, and their gut enzymes ...