Plastic-chomping bacteria could transform bottles into make-up, drugs and perfumes

By Pol Allingham via SWNS

Plastic-chomping bacteria could transform plastic bottles into make-up, drugs and perfumes, according to a new study.

University of Edinburgh scientists engineered an E. coli bacteria to eat our litter and regurgitate it into something else.

Mountains of disposable polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles are thrown out every day.

The world produces 30 megatons of PET a year - over 80 percent of which is for single-use products, leading to around 25 megatons of PET waste in the same period.

The new E. coli can upcycle discarded PET into adipic acid, widely relied on in the cosmetic, pharmaceutical, and fragrance industries.

Writing in ACS Central Science, the researchers announced it was the first “one-pot” solution for making plastic waste useful, or valorizing it, using microbes.

Adipic acid is generally created by an energy-intensive process that is reliant on fossil fuels, and the team hopes their study will encourage industries to use fossil alternatives.

They said: “This approach enables the upcycling of waste carbon from existing industrial processes to create circular economies, avoiding the environmental consequences of landfill and/or incineration processes.

“These emissions have been shown to significantly contribute to global greenhouse gas levels.

“Although chemical and biological approaches to the depolymerization and recycling of PET waste are being investigated, bio-upcycling technologies to convert plastic waste into higher value small molecules are less established

“However, the microbial synthesis of adipic acid directly from waste PET remains an outstanding challenge in the field of chemical biotechnology.

“Herein we report the first one-pot bioproduction of adipic acid from terephthalic acid and terephthalate waste in engineered Escherichia coli.

“The development of new sustainable bio-based methods to valorize waste carbon into industrial small molecules is an elegant approach to creating a circular chemicals economy.

“We believe this is the first report of the bioproduction of adipic acid from a plastic waste source, substantiating the use of microbial biotechnology as a solution to the valorization of this abundant ‘waste’ feedstock while also diverting chemical manufacturing routes away from the sole use of raw petrochemicals."

Previously, other engineers created an E. coli strain that could transform the main component in PET, terephthalic acid, into vanilla flavoring, otherwise known as vanillin.

Building on their research, the University of Edinburgh’s team practiced getting microbes to metabolize terephthalic acid into small molecules including short acids.

Using discarded bottles and coating from waste packaging labels, the experts engineered E. coli to create adipic acid.

They first turned terephthalic acid into muconic acid using one type of E. coli and then transformed that into adipic acid using another E. coli.

They managed to turn up to 79 percent of the terephthalic acid into adipic acid.

Next, the team hopes to find a way to create higher-value products through similar processes.