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Nations have laid plans to negotiate a legally binding global treaty to reduce plastic pollution.
Cows aren’t at the table for the discussions but they may play a part in making the treaty work.
One of the four chambers in a cow’s stomach is the rumen, which incubates the bacteria that break down the coarse vegetation that cows eat.
The vegetation that cows eat contains a substance called cutin, which makes up the waxy outer wall of plant cells and is common in apple peelings and tomato skins.
Cutin has a chemical structure similar to PET, the common plastic used to make soda bottles, food packing, and synthetic fabrics, among other things.
Researchers at the University of Minnesota figured that if cows can digest cutin, maybe they could digest PET.
So the scientists analyzed liquid from cows’ rumens and found bacteria producing enzymes that break down not only PET, but also the plastics PBAT, used to make compostable plastic bags, and PEF, a plant-derived, water-resistant plastic.
When the team soaked the targeted plastic in rumen juice for a few days, they found that the bacteria degraded all three forms of plastic, PET most effectively.
Looking at the bacteria’s DNA, they found the bacteria were cousins to several other species that are known to be able to digest plastics.
TRENDPOST: The process for growing massive batches of working bacteria in vats is well-known. A process could easily be designed to produce plastic-eating bacteria by the barrel.
More difficult: setting up an infrastructure that will collect the process, feed it to the bugs, then dispose of the effluent.