Scientists in Britain and the United States have designed a substance that eats plastic. They believe that, in the future, it could help reduce pollution. The enzyme is able to break down polyethylene terephthalate, or PET. This form of plastic was patented in the 1940s. It is now used in millions of metric tons of plastic bottles.

PET plastics can remain in the environment for hundreds of years. The plastics pollute large areas of land and water around the world. Researchers from Britain’s University of Portsmouth and the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory made the discovery. They did so while examining the structure of a natural enzyme that is thought to have evolved in a waste recycling center in Japan.

John McGeehan, a professor at Portsmouth, co-led the work. He said the researchers found that the natural enzyme was helping a bacteria break down PET plastic. So, the researchers decided to make small changes to its structure by adding some amino acids. This led to a valuable change in the enzyme’s actions. It made the enzyme’s plastic-eating abilities work more quickly. “We’ve made an improved version of the enzyme better than the natural one already,” McGeehan told the Reuters news service. He added that it may be possible for them to make more improvements to it in the future.

The journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published the team’s findings earlier this month. The team is now trying to make it possible for the enzyme to be able to break down much larger amounts of PET plastics.

Aliqismet BADALOV,
“Khalq qazeti”