Can Enzymes Help Us Degrade PET Plastic?

Look around you: from your toothbrush to the packaging of your favourite snacks, plastic infiltrates every corner of our daily lives.

Plastic is a useful and highly versatile material. It can help preserve temperatures and shape lighter packaging for efficiently shipping goods around the world.

But the problem is that it takes years to break down naturally.

Even when natural phenomena ends up degrading plastic, the damage may still present itself in the form of microplastics, which have been found to be present in the water we drink, the food we eat and even our blood and organs, with still unknown consequences.

Plastic pollution, especially that which is caused by single-use plastics like water bottles and packaging materials, has become a major environmental problem, not only clogging up our oceans and landfills, but also putting our health at risk.

The issue with PET plastic

When we say ‘plastic’ we are actually referring to a wide variety of materials with some characteristics in common: low electrical and thermal conductivity, flexibility or lightness are among them.

Polyethylene terephthalate, commonly known as PET, is one of the most used plastics for textile and single-use products. Plastic bottles, clothes, vehicle pieces or furniture are made of PET.

In theory, PET can be recycled and reused because it is a thermoplastic, which means it can be melted and reshaped repeatedly without degrading its quality.

However, huge amounts of plastics are not recycled yearly, including PET. And even when PET is recycled, its impact on the environment cannot be denied.

Traditionally, PET treatment implied incineration or landfilling, which contribute to the pollution of the atmosphere and terrestrial ecosystems.

Nowadays PET can be fully transformed into new products, but it needs high amounts of energy, chemicals and mechanical processes that damage the environment and are economically costly.

Which in the end means that the problem of managing PET waste is far from being solved.

Can enzymes degrade PET plastic?

But there might be a solution right under our noses – enzymes!

PETases are enzymes that can degrade PET, and they could be our secret weapon in the fight against plastic pollution.

So, how exactly do enzymes help us tackle the plastic problem? Well, it's all about breaking things down.

Enzymes like PETases have the ability to dismantle PET molecules into smaller, more manageable pieces, eventually breaking them down into harmless substances that can be recycled or safely decomposed by microorganisms.

Imagine a world where plastic waste is no longer an issue – where we can rely on enzymes as allies in our quest for a cleaner, healthier planet. It's a future worth striving for, and research on enzymes is paving the way.

For example, a recent study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Colorado Boulder, with participation from ZYMVOL researchers, has delved into the mechanisms that affect the productivity of PETases engineered through directed evolution.

In this study, scientists were able to increase the thermostability and activity of the enzyme at mild temperatures, both improvements towards a better application of the enzyme for PET degradation processes.

Applying random evolution together with computational techniques, this study also served to better understand the concentration-dependent inhibition dynamics of PETase.

The research sheds light on how we can optimize enzymes to maximize their plastic-degrading capabilities, bringing us one step closer to a plastic-free world.

At ZYMVOL, we're glad to play our part in tackling the plastic challenge head-on. By exploring the potential of PETases enzymes and harnessing the power of computational enzyme engineering, we're working towards a future where plastic pollution is a thing of the past.

So, can enzymes help us degrade plastic? Absolutely.

With the right minds put into it, and without losing focus on innovation and collaboration, enzymes have the potential to re-design the way we approach plastic waste and pave the way for a cleaner, greener world.