International Law

The Plastic Bag Problem

By Stan

Hey, if this is true, can I start getting free bags at Walmart again? (From Wired, of course.)

Plastic takes thousands of years to decompose — but 16-year-old science fair contestant Daniel Burd made it happen in just three months.

The Waterloo, Ontario high school junior figured that something must make plastic degrade, even if it does take millennia, and that something was probably bacteria.

(Hey, at between one-half and 90 percent of Earth’s biomass, bacteria’s a pretty safe bet for any biological mystery.)

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 genus Pseudomonas, and the other from the genus Sphingomonas.

FYI, a lot of fast food places here in Beijing (not sure about other cities) are going to stop putting take-out orders in plastic bags; they will still use the plastic boxes for each dish, I assume. That is really inconvenient for disorganized people like me, but I guess I need to stuff a few bags in my briefcase or something just in case I have a sudden craving for take-out jiaozi. It’s worth it.

Full post as published by China Hearsay on May 24, 2008 (boomark / email).