Plastic eating enzymes just got even better! New breakthrough.

Plastic-eating enzymes were discovered in nature several years ago and scientists having been developing them ever since. Now, a newly discovered enzyme allows them to break down PET into a chemical that can be widely used in nutrition and medicine.
Illustration of the TPADO enzyme image credit to Rita Clare/Scivetica www.scivetica.com
Help support this channels independence at
/ justhaveathink
Or with a donation via Paypal by clicking here
www.paypal.com...
You can also help keep my brain ticking over during the long hours of research and editing via the nice folks at BuyMeACoffee.com
www.buymeacoff...
Video Transcripts available at our website
www.justhaveath...
Interested in mastering and remembering the concepts that I present in my videos? Check out the FREE Dive Deeper mini-courses offered by the Center for Behavior and Climate. These mini-courses teach the main concepts in select JHAT videos and go beyond to help you learn additional scientific or conservation concepts. The courses are great for teachers to use or for individual learning.climatechange....
Research Links
Main Paper
www.pnas.org/d...
Phys.Org Article
phys.org/news/...
Microplastics in lung tissue
phys.org/news/...
BOTTLE Consortium
www.bottle.org...
Centre for Enzyme Innovation
www.port.ac.uk...
Montana State University
www.montana.ed...
Anti-carcinogens in PCA
www.sciencedir...
Check out other KZbin Climate Communicators
zentouro:
/ zentouro
Climate Adam:
/ climateadam
Kurtis Baute:
/ scopeofscience
Levi Hildebrand:
/ the100lh
Simon Clark:
/ simonoxfphys
Sarah Karvner:
/ @sarahkarver
Rollie Williams / ClimateTown: / @climatetown
Jack Harries:
/ jacksgap
Beckisphere: / @beckisphere
Our Changing Climate :
/ @ourchangingclimate
Engineering With Rosie
/ engineeringwithrosie
Ella Gilbert
/ drgilbz

[@tomarmstrong1281]

Hats off to this man - he does valuable work.

[@JustHaveaThink]

Cheers Tom. Much appreciated

[@grindupBaker]

Hats off and let the True You shine out blazingly.

[@pastorpresent1]

Insightful, concise, with some human warmth added in. What a terrific combination!

[@JustHaveaThink]

Thank you sir. Much appreciated :-)

[@acasccseea4434]

most of all, well researched and from reputable sources. there's no point listening to green spam.

[@cycloneranger5354]

Exactly, straight to the point I love this channel

[@choosecarefully408]

Yep. I now have the plot to my dystopian future novel ready to go! "The plastic-eating enzymes first got loose from a lab in '_____.' The first disasters occurred when a plane fell out of the sky..."

[@rklauco]

I can't help but feel optimistic after watching this one. This is great progress, lots of tedious work behind, but great achievement. Thanks for sharing this.

[@JustHaveaThink]

Cheers Robert. Much appreciated

[@mmaaddict78]

So long as these enzymes don’t have any as of yet unforeseen consequences, such as dissolving the entire planet lol. I’m exaggerating of course, but things like this tend to create other issues.

[@jhde9067]

@@mmaaddict78 exactly! You suddenly feel optimistic but you stop yourself thinking, it's too easy. What's the draw back? And suddenly you feel uneasy.

[@calebmauer1751]

@@mmaaddict78 Drawbacks would likely be economic in nature, like it's expensive to make the enzyme, or it takes forever to work so you need lots of space and time, things like that. Not necessarily insurmountable though.

[@SaveMoneySavethePlanet]

It really is amazing. I had no idea that they had progressed so far in just 2 years!

[@ejbh3160]

I was a co-founder of a recycling firm in the 1980s - unfortunately councils didn't want to go the way I would have preferred. Back in those days everything went in black bins, food, metal, plastic - everything. At that stage I believed the best way to handle large amounts of this waste would have been to really push the bio-waste separation and let everything 'dry' go in the black bags. Then those black bags could be mechanically & hand sorted (even back in the 80s before scanners and more sophisticated identifying tech was available most dry waste could be mechanically separated). The separated bio waste could be anaerobically digested making biogas (methane) and food grade co2 and the 'digestate' is a fertiliser rich in NPK... the biogas could even power the lorries doing the recycling collections. Plastic has always been the difficult one to recycle because the value is not great and new plastic can be made cheaply. Perhaps what is needed is a carbon/environmental tax on new plastic, to encourage the reuse and recycling of plastics - sadly the plastic industry plans to double its output in the next 20 years.

[@jamesmorton7881]

The mfgs chose not to accept the cost of recycling ( more profits ), major failure allowing them to push that magnified cost onto consumers. Banks make nothing, but profits. unproductive and unearned income to boot.

[@incognitotorpedo42]

@@jamesmorton7881 Banks provide a service. They provide a place to safely store your money, checking and credit card services, and they provide loans. That's not nothing. Hospitals and schools don't make stuff either they provide services.

[@TheBooban]

Incineration is the best second use for plastics. And anything else. I don’t understand countries that use landfills.

[@MirrimBlackfox]

@@TheBooban So you enjoy breathing in waist products? Because all those chemicals go into the air when something is burned.

[@TheBooban]

@@MirrimBlackfox in your back yard yeah. At a proper incinerator, not that junk you have in the US and UK, but like Sweden and Singapore, all the poisons are captured or, you know, incinerated till they are gone. All that crap is burned, nothing but healthy black ash left.

[@simoncavill]

An interesting diversion, is that one of the first indications that nature could break down plastics, was from beekeepers. Greater wax moth invades weaker Honeybee hives and lays hundreds of eggs on the beeswax comb. The hatched moth larvae burrow into the comb and eat the beeswax, growing bee larvae and honey at an alarming rate and can destroy a entire hive in weeks. When beekeepers started switching over to better insulated polystyrene based hives, we noticed how the moth larvae also had no problems also burrowing and eating their way through the 3-4cm of solid polystyrene hive walls as well as the plastic bags we sometime use to contain winter sugar candy feeds. They can be a real pest! I think one of the first indications in the sceince world was when a group of Japanese researchers collected a number of wax moth larvae in a plastic bag only to have them escape over the weekend when they eat their way throgh the bag! They looked into what was going on and discovered the digestive enzymes in the wax moth larvae could digest plastics and that seems to have set off this whole chain of research.

[@SToNeOwNz]

That is interesting, i recall hearing that a beetle larvae could break down polystyrene quickly but most of it is converted to CO2 by their gut flora. better than plastic I suppose. i do wonder how much carbon we have that is sequestered in plastics globally that might suddenly be released if a pestilent species were to acquire these genes. A similar situation happened in earths history when fungi figured out how to process lignin in trees.it was a time when the air was very oxygen rich and the insects grew huge by todays standard.

[@JimJohnson777]

I highly recommend Richard Heinberg’s recent book “Power”, Which brilliantly describes the world’s problem of long-term sustainability, and in turn highlights the potential importance of technologies like this.

[@jamespardue3055]

"Sustainability" has long been, at best, ignored by industry, and at worst considered a dirty word to be ridiculed as "Eco-Terrorist Lingo". Thanks for the reference, will check it out.

[@biodiversityfanatic2454]

@@jamespardue3055 "eco-terrorism" is when you have the audacity to protect the world from ecocide.

[@qwcew]

If I had to take a guess at how they made the name, sakaiensis is derived from Sakai the city where the bacterium was originally isolated from; Ideonella is derived from Ideon which is the name of the titular mecha from Space Runaway Ideon which is known for destroying a lot of things.

[@gregbailey45]

Thanks! I'll hang onto that titbit for my next Trivial Pursuit outing!

[@faithce4936]

Very amazing, thanks for “breaking down” this dense material for all of us. I for one don’t want micro plastics in my lungs so I hope this goes a long way!

[@aryaalessia4492]

It’s already inside of your bloodstream 🤣

[@MrFmiller]

Sounds great. I hope mass production doesn’t have it’s own unintended consequences. A large concentration of the bacteria or enzyme that consumes plastics in the environment might adapt to eating propeller seals, well seals, plastic components, paints, and any number of unforeseen objects. Things don’t always go as intended.

[@gazzas123]

Mutant 59 a tv show just remember what it did.

[@peterbarlow8912]

The book and movie Andromeda Strain. What if it gets loose and eats critical durable goods. Reduce reuse recycle

[@GreenJimll]

I once had to go into a derelict, decommissioned lab as part of my then networking job. On the door to one part of the lab was an old sign that said something like "Warning: Methane Eating Microbes. Access only for Dr Chandra." I often wonder what happened to those microbes, or if it was some sort of researcher in joke.

[@LuaanTi]

That's the tricky part, isn't it? A big part of why we use plastics in the first place is their durability, including against bacteria. And unlike materials like glass, that isn't because they're at the bottom of the energy well - quite the opposite, they are quite good sources of energy... if something "figures out" how to break those chains. Sooner or later, with or without our help, that's going to happen (as it indeed happened with pretty much all the "inaccessible" sources of energy in the world, though it can of course take a very long time).

[@grindupBaker]

Uh oh. Challenger space shuttle ?

[@williamholmes7529]

Nice one, big shout out to researchers looking to improve the lives of all creatures on the planet. And also to you Dave for another well presented video detailing their exploits 🙏

[@JustHaveaThink]

Thanks William. Much appreciated.

[@Kevin_Street]

Thank you for this followup video. It's really interesting to see how some of the technologies you've discussed earlier are progressing, and in particular it's good to see how plastic-eating enzymes have come along. Letting nature itself do the heavy design work and then improving the results with science seems to be a pretty productive strategy. It makes sense that the original bacteria would have a way to deal with the byproducts like TPA.

[@JustHaveaThink]

Thanks Kevin. I agree - the more we can learn from nature, the better.

[@richardgoldsmith7278]

A step towards truly closed loop materials cycles where nothing is “Waste” and sustainability moves closer to our planet’s best examples of enrichment or greening.

[@richardgoldsmith7278]

@Just Hαve α Think’s▫️ reported scam.

[@timmurphy5541]

What concerns me is: lets say a bacteria could chomp plastic: wouldn't that make plastic largely useless? Any contamination from it would finish off the shelf-life enhancement that we use plastics for?

[@brianfretwell3886]

Yes, don't spill any on an aircraft as in the Doomwatch episode "The Plastic Eaters" from the 1970's.

[@carlpodrecca5177]

Gee how you been using that plastic in your lungs? Been working out good for ya huh?

[@mill2712]

That could be a possibility. Hopefully advances in material science could help with the creation of a new replacement with less impact to the environment.

[@canberk1667]

Exactly!

[@TaiViinikka]

Well, the bacteria have already occurred naturally, so that cat is out of the bag. It seems like research is focused on artificial systems that use the enzyme alone, which is much safer. Enzymes can't reproduce, and don't last in the environment; they are just well-designed proteins.

[@robertfallows1054]

I haven’t looked through all your videos so I might have missed it but a huge issue it seems to me in the plastic recycle world is the number of plastics. Here near Chicago I live in a community that tries to instruct residents on how to recycle household packaging. There is a labeling system on plastics usually from 1-6 that tries to ID the plastic and how you can or can not recycle it. This is usually at a designated drop off if the plastic is something other than plastic pop bottles etc. it’s incredibly frustrating and confusing and if you just decide to not separate plastics you run the risk of contaminating (too many different types) the mix at the drop off point with the result the drop off might be closed. So hopefully we can get these plastic munching enzymes on the job asap and not see the idea just disappear. Another gripe I have is: Have tried purchasing solar panels recently?? Hard to find. Expensive. Usually have to buy in bulk. Big supply chain issues. I don’t need many so I may just buy a couple from Amazon but it’s like buying lumber.

[@SaveMoneySavethePlanet]

The amount of plastics is definitely an issue, but this is still important because PET is one of the most common. It’s pretty much the most commonly plastic used in the food and drug industry. I’m also assuming that finding this and working out the kinks for PET will expedite scientists being able to find tweaks that they can do for other common plastics like PP, PE, PC, and PS. We definitely need to trim down the types of plastics we use though…

[@benmcreynolds8581]

This is awesome and the exact direction they should be going because working with Nature to harness Nature is the best approach 👍

[@jimurrata6785]

While it's great to see progress made breaking down plastics, the scale of the 'problem' seems overlooked. PET is one of the few plastics that we seem pretty good at recycling. While I'm not so sure how much value there is in flooding the market with ethylene glycol. Will watch with interest to see if and how this enzyme is modified to reduce other polymers.

[@emmabird9745]

I don't know about 'flooding the market' with ethylene glycol but I can see two good uses for it in 'saving the planet'. 1. As an antifreeze/working fluid in heat pumps which need to work in sub zero conditions. 2. As a heat storage medium/working fluid in solar heating hot water storage systems. It has the obvious antifreeze property and, I believe (correct me if I'm wrong), it has a higher thermal capacity than water. Either way I agree with you its great to see progress on solutions.

[@jimurrata6785]

@@emmabird9745 I'd like to see POLYethylene glycol used as it's not nearly as toxic. While pure water has more capacity to carry heat (volume to volume) ethylene glycol raises the boiling point beyond what your pressure cap might suggest. Add to this that glycol based antifreeze lubricates seals, inhibits corrosion and keeps anything from growing as advantages. I still wouldn't want hundreds of gallons of it circulating in my backyard or on my roof.

[@gregbailey45]

Hopefully, ethylene glycol is a good feedstock for more valuable products. Maybe even plastic!

[@jimurrata6785]

@@gregbailey45 😉. 🤣🤣🤣

[@emmabird9745]

@@jimurrata6785 First of all thanks for the correction viz a viz thermal capacity. Yes it has a higher boiling point than water but that is unlikely to be important in a heat storage application. I agree toxic chemicals are not a good idea. I would not advocate producing the stuff from virgin chemicals, however I was looking for a use for a biproduct that, given the ammount of plastic to deal with, we will have a lot of. I think your suggestion of polyethelene glycol looks a good use for it given ethelene glycol is a feed stock. Not being a chemist I was previously unaware of it, Thanks for the education.

[@keithaumann8183]

This is excellent news! We are growing our capabilities to re-use our waste.

[@Noisy_Cricket]

This just made my day that much better! Thanks to you and to the scientists who worked on this!

[@JustHaveaThink]

Glad you liked it :-)

[@fawazr]

The hoops we'll jump through to ensure the continued success of the plastics industry.

[@meoff7602]

Well of course. It's an endless supply of construction materials. Even if we runout of crude oil. There is always vegetable oil. Granted the last one is whole another problem that would need to be solved.

[@buddypvaz124]

I do enjoy having a think.

[@global_nomad.]

thanks for the update on the development of this tech...hope it becomes viable at a commercial scale asap

[@SaveMoneySavethePlanet]

Yea, I’m also hoping that we hear word on commercialization in the next year or two.

[@roadgoeseveron7128]

the knowledge i gain from this channel always gives me a tiny little bit of hope... rare these days

[@davitdavid7165]

A sequal to the video i found this channel through. And a worthy one.

[@recordkeeper4761]

It's aways nice to hear that we are making progress

[@jambay4785]

For those that are interested, way back in the 60's/70's there was a comic magazine, Green Arrow and Green Lantern, that was about an alien invasion that was polluting the world so they could thrive here, and yes there was the DC version too. I do hope we can control and adapt to our life on this planet.

[@timclifford8809]

What remarkable ingenuity! Hats off to all involved.

[@leoclark5831]

This is an AMAZING update...even better plastic eating enzymes...AWESOME Plastic in people's lungs? NOT OKAY

[@rockman531]

Fantastic information!! Thank you for all your research (& good chuckles) every week! Love your channel!! Jim in Phoenix, AZ.

[@JustHaveaThink]

Cheers Jim. Much appreciated :-)

[@Erbmon]

This reminds me of a documentary on mushroms, wood does not decompose on it's own for centuries it just piled up, then a mushroom evolved a bacteria that was able to decompose wood. There is no question that live will live on, the question is if humans will survive to observe it.

[@orionx79]

Love the way you look at the study itself then translate it while stating both. I'm now subscribed and liking your vids.

[@erikcomtois2492]

Great story. Thanks for the following up.

[@agw5425]

I wonder if those bacteria are safe to ingest and if they can brake down plastics already in our bodies if that would have any health benefits at all that is. Perhaps this should be a recurring topic on a regular basis.

[@epicpwn15000]

I think we will have to flush it out with non plastic food and water. Our bodies will kill the bacteria.

[@Kevin_Street]

Even if they're safe to ingest our immune systems will still hunt them down and eliminate them. That and other problems (like the need for additional buffering agents to speed up the reaction, and the problem that the main byproduct of one enzyme is antifreeze) would pretty much rule out the use of this process in living creatures. I'm not really sure what can be done about microplastics that are in our tissues, but frequent blood donations could reduce the level of plastics (and other forever chemicals) in our blood. Maybe that could be a solution?

[@agw5425]

@@Kevin_Street It would have to be a modified version that do not cause worse side effects than it cures. Can the micro plastics be filtered out of the blod or how would donations help?

[@LuaanTi]

Your body is generally pretty good at fending off assaults by alien bacteria and enzymes. And keep in mind that this is just _one_ enzyme in the chemical repertoire of the bacterium - they're still perfectly capable of eating everything other than plastic in your body ;)

[@TheAnticorporatist]

There's also a super basic (as opposed to acidic) mold that can make granite temporarily clay like, very handy for building Southern American pyramids.

[@موسى_7]

Thanks for (as opposed to acidic) because I thought you meant the mold was simple!

[@thewatersavior]

Diapers in a dump seem like the ultimate petri dish... Or at least the ultimate naming opportunity

[@peteglass3496]

There was quite an interesting discussion of a paper on this topic on "This Week in Microbiology" TWiM 257 in Jan 2022 on prof. Vincent Racaniello's KZbin channel (audio only) and standard audio podcast. It was a big data trawl for plastic eating enzymes in the environment at large. 2nd paper discussed after phages, I think open access. Also further discussion on nanoplastics in food - prepare to be shocked...

[@JustHaveaThink]

Thanks Pete. I'll look that up

[@peteglass3496]

@@JustHaveaThink thanks for the name check - these 18months+ I've been watching prof. Vincent's Virology course and his science discussions between my normal EV viewing habits and channels like yours. :)

[@unvergebeneid]

This sounds promising but I wonder if PET might be the low-hanging fruit in terms of how easy it is to metabolise. I just looked up some numbers and found that only about 6.7% of plastics produced are PET. And PET recycling is actually among the best already :/

[@DRakeTRofKBam]

It may be a low hanging fruit, but itll serve as the basis to tackle other plastics as well, not to mention that we could end up having a basis for engineering other plastic enzymes in the future

[@unvergebeneid]

@@DRakeTRofKBam I am not an organic chemist but my understanding is that especially polymers containing halogens like PVC are a completely different beast.

[@adamrak7560]

@@unvergebeneid exactly. - PET is one of the easiest because it is a polyester. Nature has lots of experience about breaking the ester bond (no need to add energy, just add water and an enzyme). - Polyethylene or propylene are pure carbon chains. Breaking a carbon-carbon bond inside a carbon chain without relying on any tricks (like double bonds, hydroxy side chains, etc..) is very difficult. - PVC uses a carbon chain, but some hydrogens were replaced with a chlorine atom. Breaking the carbon-carbon bonds should not be more difficult compared to PE or PP, but you can accidentally make very toxic halogenic carbon compounds. (almost all small halocarbons are highly toxic!) So for PVC you need to either remove the chlorine from the carbon, which is quite difficult, or convert it into a harmless molecule, which is almost impossible.

[@unvergebeneid]

@@adamrak7560 thanks for the insight, depressing as it might be!

[@joemerino3243]

@@unvergebeneid It's only depressing if you want your water pipes to start rotting in the ground, while dumping toxic halocarbons into your water supply.

[@Adam_Bosscoe]

So what you're saying is if we keep looking for solutions to problems, there's a chance we'll find that and more? I agree and couldn't be happier! 🙌

[@shararham81ify]

Thanks for the positive news.

[@whidbeyweather3116]

Tons of great information on your Channel!

[@mattstirling7494]

Genuinely impressed by the quality, breadth and humour of your work. I love how you treat your audience like intelligent adults. Bravo!

[@pw4721]

Only just discovered this channel. After watching just the latest video and now this video about plastic munching microbes, I feel a renewed sense of optimism about our future. We still need to clean up mankind's act, find alternative means of power etc etc....and whilst we can't just sit back and rely on science to get us out of the mess we have created, science and the benefits it can bring to our lives and to the planet are amazing. I struggle to fully understand some of the science behind the plastic eating microbes, but it does appear to be amazing. We need to lobby governments and private funding sources to invest in this and other technology....just think if the all countries of the world just for one year spent nothing on weapons and instead invested the money in science what amazing advances could be made. I know it's not that easy....but just think if we could!! Thanks to 'Just Have a Think' ...will be watching all your videos.

[@josefafloresaraya]

Thanks! This make me feel less depressive!

[@marlinmixon3004]

I wonder about the toxicity of PETase and whether or not it could be used in drug form to eliminate plastic particles from humans?

[@adamrak7560]

The immune system will detect it as a foreign protein and attack it very fast. Making it human compatible is extremely difficult, because the immune system is very picky about a protein in blood plasma. Currently not even synthetic antibodies are truly human compatible, so you have to use immunosuppressants to protect them.

[@rawberto8282]

There is hope for humanity. Many thanks for translating this informaton to us humble peons.

[@richardboland1935]

Microplastics found in human lungs? I'm not the least bit surprised... Love the plastic chomping research summary, David!

[@daveinglis4225]

A danger I see is: how do you keep PETase with its updated chromosomal configuration, from also breaking down plants cutin layers making plant life highly vulnerable to bacterial degeneration? If this feature is placed back into bacteria the genie will be out of the bottle and most plant life will cease to exist. The pure enzyme would be the only option,but if it’s produced via bacteria its a only a question of time. I guess that problem has to be solved anyway. We can’t have enzymes dissolving plastic before it enters the waste stream. I’ll have to go watch the original post.

[@Fanta....]

That's an easy one to answer, you see I don't know anything but im making it look like i do by writing all this nonsense so that people scrolling past without really looking will think im uber smart and whatnot, and thus my internet rep will be retained. I hope this helps.

[@Cineenvenordquist]

The competition dynamic doesn't change so much. Plants are energetically favored until they fall to mulch.

[@TaiViinikka]

" If this feature is placed back into bacteria the genie will be out of the bottle ..." This is a problem which is solved in a large number of ways for a large number of products. Everything from vaccine components to enzymes to antibiotics is manufactured by growing a microorganism that has been engineered to produce (and sometimes secrete) the product. In doing so, you make choices that won't allow the microorganism to grow outside the factory, and furthermore won't allow the gene to be shared with a different organism.

[@kimwarburton8490]

Im so glad to have you translate the scientific jargon! i can keep up with you, but not scientific papers unless they are medical ones

[@JustHaveaThink]

Glad to be of some help :-)

[@gamehacker2801]

I like the old logo. Red attracts attention.

[@PhotonFlightTeam]

informative as always........but humor is absolutely tops! delight to view your work, always.

[@JustHaveaThink]

Cheers. I appreciate your feedback :-)

[@582tird]

It gives me hope that nature has found a way to remove plastic waste. Goes to show nature will heal itself long after we’re gone

[@gloriakalcic135]

Really good video and a very warm voice. I would like to be able to help with these researches. Thank you ❤

[@slartibartfast7921]

Fantastic. Amazing work as always and infinite props to the scientists working in this 🙏🏻

[@kevinjpluck]

Be great to have an explanation of the practicalities these enzymes would need to do their job. Can you just dump bottles in a vat? Would they need to be really clean / ground up / just PET or would other plastic inclusions mess with the process? How often would the enzyme solution need to be replaced? Thank you for these superb videos!

[@SaveMoneySavethePlanet]

Based on how far they’ve gone in two years, I’m wondering if we might have the answers to those questions in just another year or two.

[@jefflappin]

There was a Canadian kid that discovered a microbe that ate plastic back 2008 too. Looks like exciting progress!

[@bzuidgeest]

apparently nobody played the ring world is adventure. where a high tech society was brought down when a bacteria started eating it's superconductors. plastics eating stuff sounds nice until it eats your windows or phone. I am all for cleaning up or do plastic waste but hopefully they are carefull with the super stuff.

[@hermitcard4494]

Sounds like great news for smartphones makers. That will make people not have a phone for too long and buy a new one.

[@marrs1013]

'...carefull...'? Yeah, right! We are famous for that.

[@NicolasMendoula]

That's awesome !

[@davedsmith86]

For what it's worth, the building blocks for PET are TPA and ethylene glycol i.e. without further conversion (as shown in this video) TPA can still be used for the manufacture of new PET

[@samjohnston4945]

Very interesting. Thanks

[@jamessellards7157]

I love the info on your videos, it's always explained in a very interesting way. Love the channel!!!!!!!

[@JustHaveaThink]

Cheers James. Much appreciated :-)

[@WirelessGriff]

Great Stuff Dave. Thanks for making sense of some of the impenetrable scientific terms (and that comes from someone with a scientific degree :-/ ). I can’t add to the dialogue but I believe that leaving comments here also helps to promote the channel on the You Tube algorithm, hence my comments here.

[@JustHaveaThink]

Cheers Hugh. Much appreciated :-)

[@peterjaniceforan3080]

Thank you for presenting clearly.

[@josemilian4167]

love the progress being made.

[@Hayesboy96]

Montana State kicks ass at engineering and science! Way cool so see it publishing some amazing scientific papers!

[@troyclayton]

Cool video, thanks. 5:22 The "DCD" molecule is shown with too many bonds (5) to the leftmost carbon in the ring (bonded with the carboxyl and alcohol groups). The ring is no longer aromatic, but the drawing shown doesn't represent this. The double bond to that carbon should be single, and the other 2 double bonds shifted one place counterclockwise on the ring (and a hydrogen added to the ring carbon showing just an OH group when the double bonds shift). I know that means little to most, but I thought it should be pointed out because trivial truth is still truth. Reaction mechanisms are my crossword puzzles. : )

[@JustHaveaThink]

Cheers Troy. You get the prize for "comment of the week" :-)

[@callmeray7705]

Not really a usefull comment, but you are right; assuming the left most (CO2H) chain is our R group (so hydroxyls at C1 ortho and carboxyls at para and C1), the double bonds are C2-C3 and C4-C5. The reason you shouldn't point this out is because anyone who requires this information to be accurate will read the paper, this is here for easy demonstration and can easily be replaced with A B and C, the rest of the information in the diagram is the destablisation of the ring which is not talked about so does not need to be shown. Also elitism in STEM is one of the main reasons women and minorities are excluded and diswades a lot of people from STEM subjects, resulting in sexism and xenophobia in those areas. Treating your comment with the same respect; Its not a drawing its a diagram, he didn't draw this, there's no pencil lines. It's not an alcohol group cuz its not on the end of the chain. Is it still counter clockwise if Iook at it from the other side, you should proabably use more scientic language. A better suggestion would be not to add any of the hydrogens as they are optional on skeletal diagrams. This is not a reaction mechanism, its a reaction, your knowledge of reaction mechanisms is not applicable. I know these suggestions mean little to you but you are still wrong and because I told you that means I am smarter. Trival truth is still truth, I do quantum mechanics while on the toilet. The elitism thing is the main take away tho, dont be like that dude.

[@troyclayton]

@@callmeray7705 You're overreacting and failed to see I am only enthusiastic, not critical. The assumptions are yours. Enjoy your day!

[@danellerbe1521]

WooHoo Dave!! I love you Man! I never miss your episodes-

[@JustHaveaThink]

Cheers Dan. Much appreciated :-)

[@-LightningRod-]

im not sure, ..but that sounds like good information and reflexively i am recoiling for the backslap.

[@harveytheparaglidingchaser7039]

Another brilliant upswing in the rollercoaster of doom and hope.

[@onebylandtwoifbysearunifby5475]

Enzymes are amazing! I took 3 years of organic chemistry, and i wouldn't even know where to begin replicating what they do. (I was also not very good at organic chemistry... But none the less...)

[@KJSvitko]

Has any progress been made on the oil eating bacteria used to help with the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico ? Sure seems like oil spills are still happening around the world and could use some help with the clean up.

[@SeeNickView]

To add to the question, Dave, if you see it, can you do a video about bioremediation? As OP mentions, there's bacterioremediation. But there is also; - phytoremediation (via plants), and - mycoremediation (via fungi).

[@MaryAnnNytowl]

I'm extremely glad they're working on making that genetic hiccup that let a bacteria eat plastics even better! The random plastics building up in our environment has been worrying - almost panicking - me for quite awhile. So learning that something really is being done to help the situation helps, at least a little!

[@tedbomba6631]

Excellent video that offers us some hopeful information about how we might begin to solve the plastic pollution problem.

[@puntuated]

I do enjoy but also learn a great deal from your summaries. Please keep it up. By the way, I preferred the previous red/orange logo used in the intro, I always thought it was very much more impressive than most used on KZbin.

[@JustHaveaThink]

Thanks for your feedback. I guess it was inevitable that not everyone would like the new logo. I changed it because of feedback saying that the wording was not clear enough.

[@ricoremo9667]

There is an enzyme discovered from the sap of the banana tree that can “eat” the plastic Coca-cola bottle. This was discovered by Dr. Serafin Riosa of the DOST during the Marcos years. This enzyme is still being used today in the Philippines as a disinfectant and odor remover in waste products…

[@c62west]

Awesome topic. Thanks.

[@alfredotto7525]

Love your channel.

[@pauleohl]

I would think that microplastics in lungs were breathed in from dust created when plastic is cut or little bits worn off when plastic is handled and not from plastic already in the landfill or floating around in the ocean. I do appreciate that fish can get microplastics in their gills and possibly even in their blood and tissues from bits worn off from plastic polluting the oceans.

[@Bareego]

Not sure it counts as plastic, but I would assume that wear on tires and shoe soles makes a large part of the microplastics

[@lesterweinheimer665]

Thanks that gives me hope that science will come to the rescue and save mankind. I was beginning To wonder if there was still reason to Hope.THANK-YOU!

[@JustHaveaThink]

Thanks Lester. Stay hopeful :-)

[@philiporeillycork]

Only just found this channel. Great videos and really informative!

[@Nightowl5454]

Your channel is growing super fast!😁

[@JustHaveaThink]

Thanks Bryan :-)

[@vaels5682]

I barely understand this chemistry at even a basic level, but every time I learn about an accomplishment like this in the field it blows my mind. I hope they can make sure that this won't have unforseen side effects on natural environments. I suppose it couldn't be worse than the plastic waste is already doing.

[@diegoayala11]

Excellent ~ thanks!

[@jonathanstewart351]

This is great news!!

[@obiwanbenobi4943]

Good to hear. :) Hope they don't let any genies out of the bottle...

[@scottkidder9046]

There should at least be a tax or a lack of subsidies on non-recyclable plastic. I don’t understand how we keep making non-recyclable plastic. Only thing I can think of is that it’s cheaper and/or it’s necessary to use a specific type of plastic for a specific use-case. But I don’t see why most plastic can’t be recyclable. As for the science, bravo!! This kind of innovation is exactly what we need. If someone can make it profitable to recycle, we are in business!! Problem solved.

[@LuaanTi]

PVC is a good example - it has been widely phased out, outside of the uses where it's actually kind of critical - like flooring or water pipes. If the corporations don't get too much power, it eventually works out (whether that's fast enough is a tougher nut to crack; but then again, we shouldn't forget that all of those things we're talking about have both negatives and positives - that's why we started doing them in the first place, though sadly, there are many exceptions, especially coming from USA, right, Listerine? :P). The problem has always been with concentrating power, whether in private or public hands.

[@mikejfranklin7000]

Very good! However, the PET plastic that they can now break down is the most easily recyclable. Plastics are given one of seven identification codes: 7, Polyethylene terephthalate (PET); 6, High-density polyethylene (HDPE); 5, Polyvinyl chloride (PVC); 4, Low-density polyethylene (LDPE); 3, Polypropylene (PP); 2, Polystyrene (PS); and 1, Other (often polycarbonate or ABS). We still have to deal with the HDPE, PVC, LDPE, PP, PS, polycarbonate and ABS. I imagine that, in the UK at least, a lot of these plastics will be collected, supposedly for recycling (if they come as plastic bottles, my local authority collects them all, provided that citizens do their duty and don’t bung it all into the grey bin for landfill). Where they go after that I don’t know, but it’s not China any more, nor Malaysia. This is just as well, since the Chinese and Malaysian contractors only recycled the easy stuff and let the rest find its way into soil and watercourses.

[@robertdem259]

Such a great video! I'm actually currently working with the mutated PETase and a bunch of cutinases. My lab is trying to develop an assay to allow for high throughput testing of larger libraries of mutants for these enzymes to accelerate their development. Also trying to understand how they bind and access these bonds on the highly crystalline plastic surface, to be able to apply this to other enzymes.

[@zennvirus7980]

It's nice to see that the RSPC bacteria (Rumper-Stumper-Plastic-Chumper, as you christened them in the previous video, great on the scientific lingo, btw) have grown to the point that they can produce useful stuff. I know that I may sound sarcastic with the next comment, but if Hollywood and the entertainment industry have managed to discover how to recycle their products into their basic components and milk them for all the profit they can squeeze out of their garbage, frankly speaking, the plastic industry should have figured out the benefits of large-scale recycling and its inherent profits 20 years ago.

[@hendrienel2259]

Thankyou

[@anders21karlsson]

Great video as always.

[@JustHaveaThink]

Thank you :-)

[@davidboyle1902]

It would be marvelous to think that some of these new compounds could be sprinkled across the oceans where eddies collect and hold plastic detritus. Yet what comes with that is the concern that these newly created compounds could have unforeseen downsides. Digesting away plastics would be wonderful so long as those compounds know when to stop digesting.

[@billradford2128]

This channel is one of the best out there as it strives to help us solve mankind's catastrophes. Thank you. The subject today reminded me of a sci-fi novel I read 5- or 60 years ago (I was a kid) where someone discovered a bacteria that consumed plastics. The scientists worked on it in the UK to make it 'better' and succeeded in making it 'go viral' so to speak and it escaped into the environment. One of the scientists fled to the USA with something that might help bring it under control but halfway across the Atlantic noticed his briefcase was dissolving on his lap! End of book! That book predated DNA manipulation or decoding as well as the internet and so much else, so I will not be loosing any sleep at all that life may imitate sci-fi art!

[@JustHaveaThink]

Hi Bill. Thanks for your feedback. A lot of folks in the comments seem to be worried about that kind of dystopian future, but I think this will be an otherwise benign product that can be well controlled in lab or factory conditions.

[@mikemccarthy1638]

Wow!! That one reminds me of “Ice-Nine”. “And so it goes…”

[@littlecoloreddots]

I have a think. Since most bottle recycling systems use the barcode for identification, would not a competition inspire better recycling practices? I'm sure the Pepsi/Coke rivalry could be made to work in our favor if some matter of pride or prizes was at stake. Just a thought.

[@SaveMoneySavethePlanet]

Possibly, but I think the biggest thing holding back recycling is that virgin plastic will pretty much always be cheaper. This is because it’s basically made the the left overs from a barrel of oil. So until we stop drilling for oil, it’s almost impossible for recycled plastic to ever be cheaper than virgin.

[@LuaanTi]

Funnily enough, that's how it worked with glass bottles. Each had an identification of where it was made/bottled, and the _plant_ was responsible for collecting them. They paid for any waste. But then Coca Cola "convinced" a bunch of politicians that plastic bottles are disposable, and so it should be up to the customer to liquidate them properly. The rest is history :) If you let corporations make the laws, we're actually going to end up in that cyberpunk dystopia :D

[@LuaanTi]

@@SaveMoneySavethePlanet Not oil, even - natural gas. But yes, in the US, that's surprisingly often considered a "waste product" of oil drilling. Much of that has to do with that annoying property - it's a gas. If it doesn't have enough natural pressure, it actually _is_ useless - compressing it for long-range transport costs way too much energy to be worth it. This is also one of the major issues of using the gas infrastructure for anything other than natural gas - it's easy enough to produce something like natural gas, but you don't get the free pressure; and suddenly... it just isn't worth it. Despite the fact that it actually has a lot of energy per gram.

[@SaveMoneySavethePlanet]

@@LuaanTi I like how the author of Donut Economics puts it. She says “a free market doesn’t actually exist. All that happens in the absence of rules is that the person with the most money makes up the rules so that they can keep their money. So wouldn’t you rather be a part of making the rules?0

[@LuaanTi]

@@SaveMoneySavethePlanet That's not what happens in the _absence_ of rules, though. It's what happens in a rule-based world that doesn't have rules for everything (which is impossible, of course). As bad as companies acting willy-nilly is, it's still preferable to companies forcing everyone to do what they want through their cronies in the government :D I'm under no illusions that a truly anarcho-capitalist system could really work. But modern problems are often the result of those wealthy people pushing their agenda through the ever-growing government. Can we construct a government that _isn't_ ever-growing, and one that can prevent general violence, and be stable against all kinds of manipulation? IMO a big start is in making the whole system smaller. Which in the end is kind of the whole point of the free market - you want a world of alternatives to choose from. That doesn't necessarily mean there will be something you _want_ to choose, but that's still preferable to having to take what the state gives you, and you better be happy about it! :P The founding fathers in the US tried to build such a government. Obviously enough, they failed - to the point where the US is barely recognizable as a developed country in many regards. But we still have to keep trying to find a better way, and we need to find a way there that doesn't murder millions ;)

[@valoric4767]

Love news about this. Hope it gets utilised ASAP.

[@DrJaxonsElixirOfLife]

Thanx Dave. Good to get an update on a very interesting topic..!

[@JustHaveaThink]

Glad you enjoyed it :-)

[@DrJaxonsElixirOfLife]

@@JustHaveaThink I enjoy every one of them! I don't always comment though. I have said before that I often use your videos in order to help inform and encourage other people. Thanx for your time and effort it is well worth it!!!

[@cycloneranger5354]

Could not disagree with you more about the "dreaded youtube algorithm". It has got to be one of the greatest things about the internet.

[@philoso377]

Exciting news. I have a question. What if the enzyme find three way to our food containers before we dispose it?

[@nathanielblair6466]

wow! go you! you're doing great!

[@Wol747]

My first thought was remembering the opening chapter of “The Andromeda strain”………………

[@rlsearch1]

Dave, as I have said before, you have a wonderful gift for 'dumbing down' brain numbing topics, so that a numpty like myself can get my single brain cell to rap itself around otherwise incomprehensibly complex subjects, no matter how important they are to my future. At the same time, I find myself chuckling out loud at your wonderful dry, often self-deprecating humour, -unbelievable and thank you for allowing me a glimpse into such important facets of science and technology, which I would otherwise be exempt from - keep up the wonderful work Dave👍😂👌

[@geraldbull9272]

Very good presenter.