Scientists Create Protein that Breaks Down Plastic

Plastic is ubiquitous. Water bottles, bags, food containers. It’s become a massive problem for the planet, for animals, for humans. Now, there might be some hope, a way to break it down before it takes over completely.

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The news is a consistent source of entertainment, knowledge and discovery that never ceases to exist. It always comes out with more and more material each day. Because it plays such a vital part in our lives and is so important to keep up with, it is without a doubt a piece of your everyday routine that can’t go ignored.

Whether it is to understand the ramifications of recent legislation passed, to hear about recent events and grasp the potential consequences to your country, or simply hear about what is happening in other countries in order to compare them to what’s happening in yours, the news is certainly a staple in our lives and the most consistent way to get information.

This is why Scrambled Eggs has decided to unite two of your biggest worlds: learning English and keeping up with what is happening in the world. We hope our challenging daily exercises, composed of listening, vocabulary and comprehension exercises in English, will satisfy both of those above worlds in a satisfactory and also entertaining way.

So enough about introductions, let’s get to today’s Learn English with the News topic:

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Full text:

A “Pac-Man” protein that gobbles up plastic and breaks it down could open the door to eliminating billions of tons of landfill waste. The enzyme destroys PET, which, in addition to accounting for 12% of all global waste, is ubiquitous in food and drink packaging as well as textiles.

The protein offers hope for solving global pollution by supercharging large scale recycling. Major industries would be able to recover and reuse products at the molecular level.

The enzyme reduces them into smaller parts—chemicals which can then be reassembled. In some cases, the plastics can be fully broken down in as little as 24 hours.

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, generated novel mutations to a natural enzyme called PETase that allows bacteria to degrade PET.

Experiments proved the effectiveness of the enzyme named “FAST-PETase” (Functional, Active, Stable and Tolerant PETase). Other alternative industrial processes for breaking down plastic are energy-intensive, but biological solutions, like this one, require much less.

Research on enzymes for plastic recycling has advanced during the past 15 years. However, no one had been able to figure out how to make enzymes that could operate efficiently at low temperatures to make them both portable and affordable at large industrial scale—until now.