Posted on 03/13/2016 5:31:02 AM PDT by huldah1776
A team of Japanese scientists has found a species of bacteria that eats the type of plastic found in most disposable water bottles.
The discovery, published Thursday in the journal Science, could lead to new methods to manage the more than 50 million tons of this particular type of plastic produced globally each year.
The plastic found in water bottles is known as polyethylene terephalate, or PET. It is also found in polyester clothing, frozen-dinner trays and blister packaging.
"If you walk down the aisle in Walmart you're seeing a lot of PET," said Tracy Mincer, who studies plastics in the ocean at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
Wonderful! Now , please, someone find the cure for cancer.
Law of Unintended Consequences? Imagine going out to your car in the morning and finding that all the plastic has been eaten.
Good development. I love shutting up envior-whackos.
I’m waiting for the discovery of bacteria that eats leftists, terrorists and the liberal fellow travelers, it’s a win-win:
Clean up America like never before, and the bacteria will have PLENTY to eat!
..These newly discovered bacteria can eat plastic bottles...
And what will be the unintended consequences?
We all go back to using genuine GLASS bottles?
Coca Cola *always* tasted better in a glass bottle. :)
Sounds great until the stuff is hit with gamma rays and turns on Tokyo. It will take both Godzilla AND Mothra to take it out.
I knew it! Seriously, I predicted this years back!
And pretty soon at a stop light near you somebodies bumper is going to fall of before your very eyes!
Eat right through a cars bumper.
Sure, why not...if you don't mind paying a whole lot more for your soda...
The cost of picking up, sorting, handling, cleaning, storing, pest control issues all cost money...
Or you can buy a PET bottle and a cap for pennies depending on the size of the container and just sell it and never handle it it again...
I might add the life cycle of a glass bottle in the soft drink industry was about 25 times...then you deal with the cost of handling the ones that no longer pass quality control specs...
Forget to add the capital cost of retooling manufacturing plants to run glass bottles again...
One of the great things about the soft drink industry is it cannot be offshored...
LOL mine is a 94 jeep and I would be missing the back hatch.
Can about guarantee that there will there will also be an augmented food source to get these bugs to work the complex chained polymer molecules.
Didn’t they make a movie along similar lines: Andromeda Strain?
That happens when the Messiah returns.
12 Now this will be the plague with which the Lord will strike all the peoples who have gone to war against Jerusalem; their flesh will rot while they stand on their feet, and their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongue will rot in their mouth.
Zechariah 14
Huh....Those jobs didn't go anywhere...
There has been some jobs lost to automation, technology and consolation ...
None went overseas.
Having been in the business, expect to pay about 50 % more for your soda...
Now, we are talking about losing real jobs do to lost business and sales...
Definitely worth the genuine glass bottle taste...
Would these microbes be kin to oil-eating microbes?
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