Plastic-Eating Enzyme Accidentally Discovered in Lab

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

That's cool, but isn't plastic already highly recyclable? If we could go through the effort required to put this to any real use it seems like there wouldn't be a problem in the first place.

As I understand it plastic that is currently recycled has to be 'downcycled' - what is recovered is of lower quality than the original plastic. This enzyme allows the plastic to be remade into the same products rather than a lower qulity one.

This should allow much more reuse, and cut down on the need for endlessly creating more and more new plastic from raw materials.

Hopefully that will reduce waste, and allow us time to clean up the environment, without needing to stop using plastics entirely.

[Thermodolia]

Really that’s your only fear? Not that it could run amuck?

Enzymes aren't going to "run amok."

That’s what they all say. And then they ironically die during the zombie apocalypse

[Vigil Imperium]

Solve one problem and all we do is open up room for the next one.

[Western-Ukraine]

Solve one problem and all we do is open up room for the next one.

That next one being?

[LimaUniformNovemberAlpha]

Genetic engineering.

I'm taking this as genetically modifying bacteria (practical limit, as anything can be GM'd in theory to express this trait of having an enzyme that can break down plastic) so that they produce and use the enzyme to break down plastic.

That's cool, but isn't plastic already highly recyclable? If we could go through the effort required to put this to any real use it seems like there wouldn't be a problem in the first place.

Some types of plastic aren't recyclable and just...end up in landfills.

And until we find out a way to recycle these, are the products of this plastic digestion going to be just as well contained as the plastic itself?