Submission + - Plastic-Decomposing Bacteria Discovered By Teen (wired.com)
ganelo writes: "Original article by the Record, summary by Wired.
Plastic takes thousands of years to decompose — but 16-year-old science fair contestant Daniel Burd made it happen in just three months.
The Record reports that Burd mixed landfill dirt with yeast and tap water, then added ground plastic and let it stew. The plastic indeed decomposed more quickly than it would in nature; after experimenting with different temperatures and configurations, Burd isolated the microbial munchers. One came from the bacterial family Pseudomonas, and the other from the family Sphingomonas.
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