Teen Finds Faster Way to Break Down Plastic
by Ashley Schiller
Published on June 10th, 2008
2 Comments
A plastic bag can take as many as 1000 years to decompose.
Sixteen-year-old Daniel Burd can do it in about three months.
The Canadian teenager completed the experiment as a science fair project, reports the Christian-Science Monitor. His logic: Plastic eventually degrades, so there must be a microorganism that is able to break it down. Higher concentrations of that microorganism should make the plastic break down faster. His goal was to find the microorganism, which he did.
The two essential bacteria he identified are Sphingomonas and Pseudomonas. The first has an “appetite for plastic” and the second helps the first reproduce. After some experimentation, he was able to get a plastic bag to degrade by 43 percent in just six weeks.
Used on a larger scale, this process could save space in landfills and protect wildlife that mistakenly eat plastic bag litter.
The Canada-Wide Science Fair in Ottawa awarded Burd $30,000 in prizes and scholarships.
Until this process becomes wide-spread, make sure to recycle your plastic bags using Earth 911’s recycling locator. You can also learn more about plastic bags on our product profile page.
Wallace 'J.' Nichols
posted on May 15th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
Very interesting. But better than recycling, don’t use plastic bags at all, bring your own or use your pockets!
tendo
posted on May 31st, 2009 at 4:51 pm
brilliant! figure out a way to make it profitable so corporate america will get behind the plan!