Teen Finds Faster Way to Break Down Plastic
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.
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Karl Rusher
posted on April 24th, 2012 at 12:55 am