bdev12345•10d
Scientists use bacteria to turn plastic waste into paracetamoltheguardian.com
18 comments
  • tux3•10d

    So, taking a non-expert look at the actual study, it looks like they first depolimerize PET into some acyl hydroxamate as a preparatory step.

    Then it seems the big finding here is that this Lossen rearrangement, a regular non-biological chemical step, doesn't kill E. Coli. They derive PABA from that step.

    And the E. Coli hasn't done anything yet, but since it's still alive, the cute trick is to turn PABA into APAP (acetaminophen). We already knew how to do that, but I suppose it demonstrates the point

    Now what I don't get is what was wrong with running the Lossen step separately, and only feeding the output to the bacteria.

    This article makes it sound like a miracle way to turn plastic into small molecules. They found that one of the step won't kill E. Coli. But it seems like all the steps were already possible before.

    • d4mi3n•10d

      I know nothing about this, but it seems like the kind of distinction that might make something easier/cheaper in practice. As in, do everything in a vat rather than needing to filter and pipe things around in a chemical facility.

  • doitLP•10d

    Paracetamol also known as Tylenol, Panadol and plain old acetaminophen

    • frogulis•10d

      Can't speak for the UK, but in Australia at least, "paracetamol" is the most commonly used non-brand name.

      • asplake•10d

        UK too.

        Edit:

        > Paracetamol is the Australian Approved Name and British Approved Name as well as the international nonproprietary name used by the WHO and in many other countries; acetaminophen is the United States Adopted Name and Japanese Accepted Name and also the name generally used in Canada, Venezuela, Colombia, and Iran. Both paracetamol and acetaminophen are contractions of chemical names for the compound.

        Source: Wikipedia

        • cyberge99•9d

          Good to know the USA has something in common with IRAN. Perhaps start building from there.

      • ioma8•10d

        Paralen in Czech republic.

  • casey2•10d

    I wish there were 10 stories on how reducing plastic production would help clean up the waste problem for every innovation theater story like this

  • aduwah•10d

    Geordie apocalypse is becoming reality

    https://youtu.be/ctQXDpXTNZc?si=r52UCpxSN3fgjZfq

  • lawlessone•10d

    Could they put it in an mRNA vaccine so my body can break down plastic?

    • Arubis•10d

      The plastic in your body might be _less_ toxic than paracetamol.

      • lawlessone•10d

        Probably true , but my body can already remove the paracetamol

        • Arubis•10d

          That’d actually be a neat balance to figure out. Would the increased short-term liver toxicity be better over the long run than having bloodborne microplastics persist?

        • xattt•10d

          > … can already remove the paracetamol

          In amounts less than 4 grams every 24 hours.

          • oharapj•10d

            Depending on how quickly the body would convert the plastic in this highly unrealistic hypothetical, that might work out just fine

    • colechristensen•10d

      The major part of this discovery was about something that e. coli already did on its own before genetic modification, so no not particularly. They might be able to engineer a symbiotic bacterium to live in your blood (there's a lot of doubt here), or more likely and less risky engineer a bacterium that consumed microplastics to live in your gut delivered as a probiotic or as a "vaccine" that you ate that would infect your existing microbiome.

      And not an mRNA vaccine, those are kind of too simple and are mainly there to annoy the immune system. You would either use a virus to inject new genes into bacteria or insert plasmids into bacteria in a lab which would later be consumed.

  • 6d6b73•10d

    Oh so now we can just ingest the bacteria and be pain free because of all the micro plastics in our body. Wonder what has more side effects?

    • melagonster•10d

      If blood contain enough bacteria, we have more problem should worry.