A redesigned enzyme broke down 90 percent of PET in 10 hours in a research process reported by France’s INRAE on April 9, 2020. The result concerns polyethylene terephthalate, used in bottles, food packaging and polyester textiles—not plastics generally. [shared-558cd93f232a1af991630bb6338f85c435b5b8d7db9ca63c66b6e77915bb151d]
The work joined Toulouse Biotechnology Institute researchers with French company Carbios. Their engineered PET hydrolase converts PET into terephthalic acid and mono ethylene glycol. INRAE said the team improved the enzyme’s activity and heat stability; Carbios and Critt Bio-Industries at INSA Toulouse then purified the resulting building blocks and used them to make new bottles. That laboratory demonstration showed a route from discarded PET back to bottle material. [shared-558cd93f232a1af991630bb6338f85c435b5b8d7db9ca63c66b6e77915bb151d]
For recyclers and manufacturers, the prospect is a way to recover material from PET waste for new production. But a successful research loop does not establish what it would cost to run at industrial scale, how much waste it could handle commercially, or whether it would reduce environmental harm overall. Those questions matter to workers and communities who bear the burden of waste, as well as businesses asked to change materials or processes. [shared-558cd93f232a1af991630bb6338f85c435b5b8d7db9ca63c66b6e77915bb151d]
INRAE’s release appeared April 9, a day after the joint research article was published in Nature on April 8. The demonstration is concrete; the unresolved test is whether the process can work economically and reliably beyond research conditions. [shared-558cd93f232a1af991630bb6338f85c435b5b8d7db9ca63c66b6e77915bb151d]