It's a seemingly great answer to a major issue, but you have to realize with such selective forms of induced recombination and evolution of the yeast you are going to be presented with some other pretty interesting phenotypes that would allow these strains to be extremely hardy and probably very pervasive. If you released this into "the wild" what would prevent them from spreading and preventing damage outside the waste? It terms of the types of plastic they could decompose ... when they.... More

I'm very impressed with this young gentleman's findings. It blows my mind that scientists overlook such simple solutions to problems. I'm almost 100% positive that a high school student will end up finding the cure for cancer.

http://www.loveshoponline.ca

I think before we will be able to utilize this type of microbe there will need to be some serious research into the issued this may cause. I am still staying green, and more recently doing so with my newly refurbished Macbook, and will continue to do so. But clearing the plastics from landfills will sure help (and save a thousand years).

I just want to be cool like everyone else, so I'm posting a comment lol
and btw, i believe he IS Joe the Plumber

In reply to Anonymous,

I think the story pretty much got it. The 1,000-year figure is obviously not an observation, but an extrapolation from the existing processes of plastics decomposition, which are chemical rather than biological. it's simply projecting a line on a graph from, "If this ester bond is broken once per month at this temperature, how long until the entire chain is dissolved," or some such.

It is precisely because bacteria with plastics-eating powers are rare that.... More

Plastics are made from petroleum. Petroleum, aka all that expensive oil stuff that's going to run out in (insert secret number) years. When that happens? All that plastic floating on the ocean and clogging up garbage pits will suddenly be valuable. Just wait long enough and we'll HAVE to reuse it.

Do any of you really know what you're talking about? Yea some of your basic ideas/comments are interesting/valid, but don't take a small piece of information and trying to expand on it with scientific certainty. This kid's idea is a great stepping stone to a very real and big problem; and it's one that needs to be addressed before the ecological damage caused by these plastic oceans becomes irreversible. If you're all really that concerned, take the extra time to recycle what you can; it's.... More

Some microbe, or chemical, or type of energy (e.g. thermal,or electrical) may affect one type of material but have no effect upon another. That's why we use so many different materials- we try to select the one with the best properties and appropriate cost for the requirements of the intended application - and proper disposal at the end of service life is one of those requirements.
We all need better planning in the use of materials to ensure that our trash piles don"t continue to grow..... More

It's "by-product" not "bi-product".

Just goes to show that the fancy sheepskin and alphabet soup after your name mean nothing. Science is just another religion. It has the most holy, (Chaos), priests, (the PH.Ds) and the poor sots who believe (have faith in) every word they spout without even thinking it through.

This sounds great, it really does. However, I'd like to just see plastics like the ones that have been polluting the oceans, the ones that have been piling up in garbage dumps for decades, and the ones most likely in your garbage can at home just stop being produced altogether. Besides, if we rely on these microbes to clean up for us, we will need unfathomable numbers of them -- they will breed unfathomably and likely out of our control. Not saying that's a bad thing. I'm just saying we've already .... More

Just a note. A better solution would be the use of biodegradable plastics. These are produced and used commercially (they come from bacteria, originally, although there are other ways now to produce them commercially). So why aren't they used more? Price. They're a few cents more per pound than petroleum-based plastics. This is another reason why it is actually a good thing, long-term, for oil prices to go up.

I never thought it would come to this ... now whoz gonna save my play station... damn that kid...

that kid is brilliant! i wish i could do something that helpful someday

lol humans are the problem? seems like you have been taking in too much news and coming to the conclusion that the average person is the problem and not the entirely corrupt and uncaring system in which we all operate

Nice article

Why the **** isn't it being widely used? It seems like tons of new environmentally friendly and amazing scientific breakthroughs are being discovered that will reduce waste, garbage, ECT.. like never before imagined, and you N E V E R hear of them being used, you never hear of how much waste is reduced, and you never hear how much better the environment (SHOULD) be getting. If all of these things are being discovered then why the **** don't we put them to use. It's almost as if they discover.... More