Our human habit of excessive plastic consumption has degraded the environment, and we have yet to find a solution to undo the damage. However, scientists have paved the way for a much speedier resolution with a new enzyme formula. 

Scientists have crafted a formula of two plastic-munching enzymes, PETase and MHETase, to rapidly break down plastic waste. The PETase enzyme has been previously used to break down plastics, and now when combined with MHETase, this duo can dissolve plastics six times faster. 

PETase, as its name implies, is the enzyme that dissolves polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a thermoplastic polymer commonly used in plastic bottles and clothing. The polymer PET takes hundreds of years to break down, but with PETase, the process is reduced to mere days. 

However, the rate at which PET is produced has proven to be far too mighty for the rate at which PETase can break plastics down.

So far, researchers have only found a way to break down plastic bottles, which account for just over 4% of all of the PET production that exists. Ecologists find this minuscule number frightening, as many of Earth’s limited resources are being pushed to the brink while a shift to regular recycling has been quite limited. Scientists are also highly concerned with PET’s active role in accelerating climate change. The copious amounts of greenhouse gases that are spit into the atmosphere during PET production grows more concerning as PET usage rapidly increases. PET is a sturdy material that is not broken down well by microbial organisms, so other potential solutions have failed to effectively break down the impenetrable product. The downside to current popular methods of breaking down plastics is the high amount of energy required; in turn, this becomes an incredibly costly process.

Now, an innovative team consisting of American and British scientists has found a way to create a “super-enzyme.” The MHETase enzyme was studied using the Diamond Light Source, a powerful X-ray beam that is 10 billion times brighter than the sun, to study the atoms of MHETase. They have engineered a way to connect PETase with its sibling enzyme MHETase, which has now tripled the speed of the breakdown process. Their preliminary experiments tested the ability of the enzymes to work together, but as two separate enzymes. Then, they physically connected the two enzymes, and found that the two work better attached. This new enzyme deconstructs plastics in two steps. First, PETase eats away at the surface of the plastic. Then, MHETase slices up the rest. 

Researchers are hoping that providing a commercially sustainable method for plastic deconstruction will shift people away from depleting Earth’s oil and gas resources. The discovery of the super-enzyme formula certainly holds hope for preserving the world’s ecology, if only humans learn to change destructive consuming habits for the better.