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 ...
What happened to the addition of corn starch to plastics to make them more biodegradable? I remember that in the 80’s.
The corn starch was never there to physically break down the polymer molecules, it just allowed the bag to degrade into smaller pieces quicker. Problems arose when those same properties gave the shelf life of the bags themselves suspect.
Nothing makes a consumer madder than to pull out a garbage bag off the roll, and have it crumble in your hands.
Idea wasn't as bad as the New Coke, but .............
It's hazy but, I remember one that involved cattle mutilations where a local sheriff(?) had his toothbrush treated by a shadowy government organization operative and his guts fell out on the road (I think).
'cattle mutilation movie' turned up some promising results. Maybe 'The Return', I didn't follow up.
One of those consequences will be that we’ll have no bottles to solar sterilize our water when TEOTWAWKI hits. We should probably start hoarding glass bottles now!
I hate plastic bumpers! Someone in the body shop thought that one up so they will always have plenty of jobs to do.
Ya, that sounds like what I remember.. Something about mutilations.. the cowboy guy was driving his pick-up truck after he had brushed his teeth.. got out to puke (or something like that), but his belly popped open instead.
Thank you... that might help me find it ;^)
The beast that eats CD’s
http://www.nature.com/news/2001/010627/full/news010628-11.html
Yum, ingesting information!
Good
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