In 2009, researchers from Nihon University in Chiba, Japan, found that plastic in warm ocean water can degrade in as little as a year. But in the ocean, which is where a lot of discarded grocery bags, soft drink bottles and six-pack rings end up, plastic is bathed in as much light as water. Of course, plastic buried in a landfill rarely sees the light of day. Over time, this can turn a big piece of plastic into lots of little pieces. When UV rays strike plastic, they break the bonds holding the long molecular chain together. This kind of decomposition requires sunlight, not bacteria. Until other researchers can replicate Burd's experiment and waste treatment plants can implement any new processes, the only real way to break down plastic is through photodegradation. His research earned the top prize at the Canada-wide Science Fair, earning him $10,000 cash and a $20,000 scholarship. Daniel Burd, a student at Waterloo Collegiate Institute, recently demonstrated that certain types of bacteria can break down plastic. Of course, that's not the end of the story. Load their dinner plates with some plastic bags and bottles, and the one-celled gluttons will skip the meal entirely.īased on this logic, it's safe to argue that plastic will never biodegrade. But bacteria turn up their noses at plastic. Wood, grass and food scraps undergo a process known as biodegradation when they're buried, which is a fancy way of saying they're transformed by bacteria in the soil into other useful compounds. Why? Because petroleum-based plastics like PET don't decompose the same way organic material does. Drop the same bottle into a landfill, however, and you might have second thoughts. Drop a ketchup bottle on the floor, and you'll be thankful for polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, the nearly indestructible plastic used to make most containers and bottles.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |