Bahrain has a clear vision to phase out the use of non-degradable plastic products in the local market to reduce plastic waste production, by controlling its consumption.
Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is the most common thermoplastic used to make single-use drink bottles, clothing and carpets and it takes hundreds of years to break down in the environment.
A team of scientists from the US and the UK tried to re-engineer plastic eating enzymes that can shorten the life of plastic waste degradation from years to days.
Few years ago, the team discovered an enzyme named ‘PETase’ that breaks down PET into its building blocks thus providing a great opportunity to recycle plastic infinitely, reduce plastic pollution and the greenhouse gases driving climate change.
Now, the same team combined PETase with another enzyme called ‘MHETase’ to generate much bigger improvements in plastic degradation. Their findings revealed that by simply mixing PETase with MHETase, the rate of PET breakdown can be doubled. Thus, the super-enzyme can potentially increase the plastic degradation activities by six times. Both enzymes complement each other by attacking the surface of the plastics through PETase and by chopping things further using MHETase to speed up the plastic breakdown.
The first hope that PETase enzymes provided few years ago towards a solution to the global plastic pollution problem might be within grasp, though PETase alone may not yet act fast enough to make the process commercially viable to handle the tonnes of discarded PET bottles littering our planet. Combining it with a second enzyme – they work even faster – means another leap forward has been taken towards finding a solution to plastic waste.
Unfortunately, Arab countries are considered as the world’s highest per capita waste generators. Although, sincere efforts are being made to improve waste management scenario by implementing source-segregation, encouraging private sector participation, deploying recycling and waste-to-energy systems, and devising a strong legislative and institutional framework.
Combining science and technology research efforts like the one mentioned above with all other efforts can potentially help in tackling mountains of waste (especially plastic) accumulating in our cities.
Dr Adnan Younis
Assistant Professor of Physics,
College of Science,
University of Bahrain
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