We’ve all heard the plastic bag horror stories—the billions of bags discarded every year that wind up polluting oceans, killing wildlife and getting dumped in landfills where they take up to 1,000 years to decompose. Researchers have been wracking their brains for years to figure out a solution. But leave it to a Canadian high school student to leave them all in the dust. Daniel Burd, an 11th grader at Waterloo Collegiate Institute, has discovered a way to make plastic bags degrade in as little as three months—a finding that won him first prize at the Canada-Wide Science Fair, a $20,000 scholarship, and a chance to revolutionize a major environmental issue.
Burd’s strategy was simple: Since plastic does eventually degrade, it must be eaten by microorganisms. If those microorganisms, as well as the optimal conditions for their growth, could be identified, we could put them to work eating the plastic much faster than under normal conditions.
With this goal in mind, he ground plastic bags into a powder and concocted a solution of household chemicals, yeast and tap water to encourage microbe growth. Then he added the plastic powder and let the microbes work their magic for three months. Finally, he tested the resulting bacterial culture on plastic bags, exposing one plastic sample to dead bacteria as a control.
Sure enough, the plastic exposed to the live bacteria was 17 percent lighter than the control after six weeks. Once Burd examined the most effective strains of bacteria, he was able to isolate two types—Sphingomonas and Pseudomonas—as the plastic munchers. At 37 degrees and optimal bacterial concentration, the microbes had consumed 43 percent of a plastic sample within six weeks.
Next up, maybe it’s time to put him to work on this whole carbon emissions thing.
May 28th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
[...] issue by discovering a method of making plastic bags degrade in about THREE MONTHS. Wow. Check the link for more details, courtesy of the Discover Magazine blog. Man, that’s [...]
May 28th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
This just goes to show that sometimes everything we think we know just works as a block for new ideas. Sometimes it takes someone who does not know what cannot work, to find what can.
May 31st, 2008 at 5:14 pm
I’m impressed, but what other problems might be caused by unleashing these bacteria out into the world? Sometimes, we just make things worse.
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:43 pm
[...] can break down all kinds of things. The trick to these bacteria is that they can make proteins that evaporate mercury, Albuthi says. [...]
February 9th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Extraordinary! I’m completely flabberghasted, good work indeed!Carry on:)
December 15th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Kim: These bacteria already exist in the world… the kid just figured out what the optimal conditions were to create a higher concentration of them.
December 15th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
If these are the optimal conditions for these bacteria, they’re most likely optimal for most bacteria. Therefore, using these containers with any food and such would likely cause a faster growth of harmful bacteria.
December 15th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
Thank you Kim. I too immediately thought of the consequences of releasing all of this bacteria into the environment. While we’re obviously not going to start dumping bacteria into our wastelands, it’s important to figure out all of the effects. The best thing to do is keep pushing recycling and study the effects of this bacteria.
December 15th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
[...] http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2008/05/27/its-in-the-bag-teenager-wins-science-fair-sol... [...]
December 15th, 2009 at 10:58 pm
Now its up to the FDA, the EPA, and the government in general to waste time in bureaucratic procedures and we might have a committee to develop a plan to use this technology in the near future. But, excellent work let us begin using it now.
December 16th, 2009 at 1:17 am
Setting these bacteria loose in mass quantities or turning the whole world into their optimum environment might be bad ideas for assorted reasons (not the least of which being that bacteria make people/animals sick), but what about setting up a kind of anti-factory for plastic bags? That way, the bacteria can go nuts and chew heck out of trash, in a controlled environment. They’d have to work out a safe way to dispose of the waste, of course; incineration comes to mind because hospitals already use it for potentially biohazardous materials.
December 16th, 2009 at 1:20 am
It is not scientifically possible to decompose plastic, the only thing that happens is that the plastic is broken into even smaller microscopic bits that are filtered through all polluted areas; the water is the most dangerous because plankton and other small organisms filter feed the small bits of plastic and it travels through the food chain back to us and other animals.
December 16th, 2009 at 2:30 am
I’m with Avrila. Obviously you can’t recreate the optimal environment everywhere out in the rest of the world, I think the idea was to be able to break down plastics more quickly in a controlled environment. Kudos to this kid, hella impressive.
December 16th, 2009 at 2:53 am
Come on Avrila, really?
Of course we’re not going to set bacteria loose in mass quantities. They wouldn’t survive. And of course we’re going to use the kid’s discovery to produce plastic breakdown plants.
You know better than to suggest incineration as a means of disposing wastes. We’ve tried it. It releases emissions into the atmosphere. More importantly, what wastes are you talking about?
For every smart kid coming up with ideas, there are 100 000 people to ruin them.
December 16th, 2009 at 5:01 am
Another win for Canada! We are not only Americas hat, but apparently that hat contains our superior brains!
December 16th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Michael, this is triumph of science for the world, why do you insist on making it a nationalist thing?
Now I’m forced to ask you to take a look at last years list of Nobel prize winners and see where the majority are from.
December 16th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Ok lets get some things straight about bacteria here because it seems most people here really have real knowledge about bacteria other than bacteria are bad and make people sick.
First off someone up above said that most bacteria probably have optimal growth conditions similar to pseudomonas and sphingomonas, most bacteria actually have some fairly unique optimal conditions, many can grow well in similar conditions but not at an optimum level.
Second off these bacteria are already exist everywhere on earth, in fact pseudomonas is one of the most resilient bacteria around. In one classroom working with pseudomonas there are literally trillions of them. In there world there are more bacteria than there are all other living organisms, the human body has more bacterial cells living within and on it than actual human cells. To say that adding even 1000 trillion of these bacteria to the enviroment and saying that they will have a big impact is like saying that throwing a few hundred gallons of hot water into the ocean will cause a permanent rise in temperature. Most would just die in a matter of minutes because due to lack of food and waste build up of the microbe.
Thirdly most bacteria do not cause disease, only a small handful of species cause any sort of illness and in a lot of cases its not even an entire species but only a certain strain of that species that like E. coli, only one very particular strain is widely known to cause disease.
And finally, to whom so ever said that it is not scientifically possible to decompose plastic, IF IT CAN BE SYNTHESIZED IT CAN BE DECOMPOSED. There are no compounds that once made cannot be degraded, to say otherwise does not make scientific sense. What you are saying is that once it is made it cannot be unmade. Plastic can undergo a very rapid degradation merely by burning it. Biodegrading something is just a controlled set of chemical reactions that degrade the compund and harvest the energy, which is in turn used to make new organic molecules.
December 16th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Pseudomonas is a life threatening microbe. Causes thousands of deaths a year in this country. Also, what happens if the microbe decides to attack plastics that we don’t want to degredate, like your car bumpers? Messing with microbes is not good. Recycle the plastic, that would be more cost effective. Petroleum byproducts are expensive. Why do we need to destroy them? Reuse, restructure, recycle.
December 16th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Pseudomonas is a genus of bacteria – some, not all, Pseudomonas species are pathogenic. To say Pseudomonas is a life threatening microbe is untrue in most cases.
Seriously folks, we’re all carrying a bacterial load of around 2 kgs, most of them beneficial – surely we can spare a few to save the planet
December 16th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
I’m using cloth bags to save the world
December 16th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Sorry Jean, if people were responsible enough to recycle in the first place we would not be trying to figure out how to get these things to decompose. You can go ahead and tell people over an over again to reuse and recycle and they still won’t or don’t. Most people just don’t give a crap about the environment. Just being realistic!
December 16th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
[...] Bacteria eats plastic http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2008/05/27/its-in-the-bag-teenager-wins-science-fair-sol... [...]
December 16th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
BACTERIA ROCK!!! I bet one day they will solve every world issue and I am completely serious about that. I don’t get why people dont like bacteria, it really makes no sense. Yes there are a handful of strains of bacteria that are harmful, but I would argue that a large number of those can be traced back to irresponsible use of antibiotics on our part, a direct correlation of our irrational fear. Maybe if we started to embrace the wonderful qualites of bacteria, solutions like this one would become reality, instead of ignored due to the public’s skewed ideas.
December 16th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
there must be more to this than meets the eye; that bacteria eat plastic, oil spills and, actually, practically everything, has been known for years. there are already some effective developments, check out ‘effective micro-organisms’ -japanese research…
December 16th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Amazing the variety of opinions about bacteria. Stop using anti0bacterial soap, that is a good start. Once the bacteria die, all life dies. Our fear of microbes is far more dangerous than our hyper consumerism.
December 16th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
I think what this kid was able to hypothesize and then demonstrate is very impressive.
However…
If people are too lazy to change their routine enough to use reusable bags, what makes you think they would do what it takes to get these bags to a place where they can be decomposed on a practical scale?
What makes more sense?
1) Building the infrastructure necessary to employ this technique on an industrial scale and somehow coercing/cajoling people into going along with it
or….
2) Coercing/cajoling people into reusing bags as a matter of course and recycling the plastic ones they need to consume when a reusable bag is not possible?
December 16th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
Thank you, Jim. You hit the nail on the head.
December 17th, 2009 at 12:19 am
Dear Sarah,
The reason we don’t want anti microbial soap is not because all the bacteria will die – that will never happen. In fact even if our environment changes where no life can survive, there will still be microbes. We don’t want to create a sterile environment, ever, because once that happens and some normally risk level 1 bacteria such as E. coli enters, it will cause huge problems where as in normal conditions it would not have caused any problems. It is just like L. monocytogenes. Leave it in an environment where there are other microflora, it will fail to thrive.
I think you’re confused with antibiotic resistance. Do not use antibiotics unless you absolutely have to or else you’ll get the same sort of thing happening – microbial resistance will grow and we’ll have a harder time sorting out the pathogens and their bad behaviour.
and @ Jean, don’t google websites made by 6 years old and spread false information to those who are already mislead, Pseud. is found everywhere. In fact it is manipulated for bioremediative purposes.
Sincerely,
Simone,
Bsc.H, Microbiology…4 years in a university learning about microbes, I have to know something right?
December 17th, 2009 at 2:14 am
hm smart kid.
shouldn’t some scientist have figured this out years ago though??
December 17th, 2009 at 3:17 am
This is great work, which help lot of people thank you and great work
Maldives
December 17th, 2009 at 7:36 am
…except, I’ve recently seen a plastic bag which is normally used as a magazine cover, after you tear it off, you can put it in a jug of hot water and it dissolves, practically instantly, and you pour the remains down the sink.
Of course I had wondered what would happen to your magazine if it was in the letterbox and got wet.
December 17th, 2009 at 10:02 am
If we all used cloth bags none of this would be necessary. Reduce first, reuse next and then recycle. We don’t need plastic bags and our selfish use of resources to make something we don’t need and then putting something into like this in motion to get rid of the thing we don’t need seems absurd to me. It’s nice that the kids in school are thinking about these things but the headline, Kid Solves Massive Environmental Problem seems a bit misguided.
December 17th, 2009 at 10:15 am
PEACE ALL,
So it would be almost interesting to link up with the Science labs, hospitals, OSHA, and any bio-chemical company and get ALL the bacteria want from them they would have they need that’s what you call RECYCLE. Seriously this is a excellent discovery and it’s a blessing for us who care. ( our we can go back to using HEMP products…GOOGLE IT. )
December 17th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
This is very good but do the bacteria respire aerobically? If so I’d be interested to know how much CO2 would be released for each decomposed bag.
December 17th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
woo hoo! save the world billions, if not trillions, and get $20K for it!! yay what a world.
December 17th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
To those who are worried about letting these bacteria loose in the world, I share your concern. However, using this method doesn’t require us to just let them loose. We can initiate this idea in controlled environments such a waste processing facilities and landfills. This just means that we have to confine our trash more. Which isn’t a bad idea. Doing so would allow us to use this method and maintain control over their activities. just a thought
December 17th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
For what it is worth, this was the subject of my Master’s Thesis at the University of Cincinnati in 1988. I isolated a bacteria from landfill styrofoam (a strain of Pseudomonas aruginosa) that really chewed plastic.
Funny how now it is getting attention. Maybe I should have hired this kid’s PR firm.
December 17th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
I don’t really see how this is useful. So the plastic gets chewed down – how is that better than recycling the plastic and making a effort to use less of it. And where would we release the bacteria and how of it would we release? And how much would it cost to keep the waste at a constant temperature of 39 degrees? Seems to me this kid is smart, but lacks the thought of practicality. PLUS I’m pretty sure that we’ve known about plastic eating bacteria for decades.
December 17th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Great Science fair project, but he is not the first to demonstrate that bacteria can degrade plastic. http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07388550500346359
This is an abstract for an article dated 2005 and is a review article meaning the works cited are probably at least as old as the year 2000.
Think about doing this on the scale needed to keep up with plastic bag usage. The amount of energy(to heat the solution) and water needed would make this a very expensive process. And as is previously mentioned these aerobic bacteria which produce CO2. To be honest, I think you’d be better off burning the bags in a high temperature incinerator or plasma converter and be done in minutes not weeks. Or as has already been stated to reduce, reuse, and then recycle(you can recycle the bags too by the way)
Again great science fair project, but there are many reasons this isn’t a real world solution yet.
December 17th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
@#3: The microorganisms were already released in the world. That’s where he found them.
December 17th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
I am a scientist and all I can say is kudos to this kid for doing an amazing job of proving a very important principle…nature already has an answer for most of the challenging things facing our society. That being said, I am skeptical of this providing some sort of huge breakthrough to the disposal of plastic waste. First, I am not an expert but there are probably hundreds if not thousands of varieties of plastics…can these bacteria eat them all? Second, we produce more and more plastic every year…can this process be scaled up to support the amount of waste we produce or is this simply something that can only be done a bag at a time? Anyways, I still think this initial work rocks as with all good science it provides even more questions to be answered.
December 18th, 2009 at 12:23 am
“Once we rid ourselves of traditional thinking we can get on with creating the future.” – James Bertrand
December 18th, 2009 at 3:02 am
Sometimes a little thinking outside the box is all we need! That’s amazing! I hope they find a quick way of implementing this for current landfills, but unnecessary plastic use should still be discouraged.
December 18th, 2009 at 8:13 am
This is hilarious! “IF people would just reuse their bags…” yeah that’s FUNNY! I would like to point out that using the plastic bags for small waste bags IS NOT RE-USING or RECYCLING them.. At THIS stage of affairs, I don’t think it is possible to ‘catch up’ with this plastic bag issue.
Either quit using the bags all together, or use these lethal (to plastic bags) bacteria!
December 18th, 2009 at 10:40 am
I think it is great to try to think of new solutions for environmental issues, but I would like to point out that this is not groundbreaking. Maximizing microbial degradation of wastes by tweaking parameters like surface area and ambient conditions is what many engineers do for a living. Probably, the only reason this technique has not already been “discovered” is because it isn’t economically feasible to do this on a large scale. Unfortunately, putting plastic bags in a landfill is a heck-of-a-lot cheaper than constructing specialized digesters for plastic bags. Sorry for being a hater….
December 18th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Interesting concept however not feasible on a large scale. We must reduce, and recycle.
December 18th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Plastic eating bacteria generally aren’t pathenogenic, so no worries about any outbreaks…bacteria make the world go round, where do you think all your beer, wine, cheese and yogurt come from, not to mention all the industrial and medical uses for bacteria. Nothing is cheaper than simply throwing it away, but money shouldn’t be an issue when it comes to applying something that can be so beneficial, it’s the political restraints that will keep this from being followed through if anything
December 18th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
the aerobic bacteria use Carbon Dioxide as a carbon source and actually consume it rather than produce it
December 18th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
…and why are you bickering about reduce, reuse, recycle when all the plastic that has been already produced and disgarded to date still has another 900 and some odd years to go before it degrades. Put the bacteria to use and reduce you plastic consumption, simple as that
December 18th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
You are what you eat. That means instead of the plastic lying there we’ll have plastic organisms crawling all around the earth pooping out plastic everywhere.
Seriously, like some have already said, let’s use less plastic! Don’t use a plastic cup up for 30 min meeting, or a plastic fork for your meal and another for your dessert at your family reunion. Don’t get a bag for one jar of peanut butter.
You may feel like an ass when you make the hard decision to bring your own silverware or plate or bag, but IT IS THE ONLY THING THAT WILL WORK!
December 18th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
wow. what an amazing feat! With his accomplishment, scientists should be able to speed up the overall time by reproducing these same microorganisms. I still think we should all try to consume less of these bags, but it’s nice to know that we have found a way to speed up the decomposition of them.
December 18th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
[...] Tagged Environment It’s In the Bag! Teenager Wins Science Fair, Solves Massive Environmental Problem | Discoblog | Di…. [...]
December 18th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
This is basically the same concept as the bioremediation method of cleaning up oil spills. Give bacteria enough nitrogen and other necessary nutrients, and some of them can digest oil or plastic or any other carbon source you need to get rid of. Once the food source runs out, they die. It’s really no more dangerous than a compost pile. For those who are imagining dumping large quantities of super hungry bacteria into the world, that’s ridiculous.
December 18th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Those that can do. Those that can’t drag out whatever grant money they get to buy more time faking it.
December 18th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
if we reduce our population by 90-95% through mandatory birth control, beginning in poverty stricken areas, saving the planet wouldn’t be a problem. Nor would hunger, disease, pollution, war, epidemic, racism, nor any other issue we have today. With our technology what it is, people could all enjoy an education equal to their ability to learn, while being able to live like kings no matter what their station. In just a few generations the world would be a virtual paradise for all it’s inhabitants, and most of the world would be set aside for wildlife etc, as it should be.
December 19th, 2009 at 2:31 am
Big marketing dollars are generated by making you afraid of germs and disease. I can hardly wait until they have pro biotic skin cream, people would use it after using antibacterial cleanser. Its all just words.
December 19th, 2009 at 6:37 am
Just do your bit folks wherever you are. Lets stop living in self denial. Only solution to plastic is to stress the environmental issues in the education system.Lead from the front with example. Others shall follow.
December 19th, 2009 at 10:43 am
Wow! Thats incredible. Innovative thinking right there.. That is what we need. New minds with new ideas.
December 19th, 2009 at 11:04 am
I agree that bright minds are what we need for our future and i hope that this ideas will be done some day by the rich and company directors or in other words .. the peoples who have the money power. I really believe that those can make a difference if they will became interested.
December 19th, 2009 at 11:54 am
Mutant 59–the Plastic Eater
December 20th, 2009 at 8:20 am
The problem is not finding a way to recycle or compost plastic.
The problem is getting the lazy and arrogant, who fling their trash around at will, to gather it for either composting or recycling.
The High Schooler who solves that will win a Nobel prize.
December 20th, 2009 at 10:57 am
What about the carbon dioxide emission during the process? I think this solution will eventually worsen the global environmental crisis in another way.
December 20th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Pseudomonas aureginosa can cause cystic fibrosis…. but that’s a small price to pay for the damage we’ve done to our Earth.
December 20th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
WTF? How stupid are people? Why not just stop making things out of plastic and switch to something more biodegradable such as hemp?
December 20th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
@ Julie
Cystic fibrosis is hereditary genetic disease, meaning that if it runs in your family, you have a higher than normal chance of inheriting it. The gene that become mutated creates the genetic disease called cystic fibrosis. Being immuno-compromised, P. aureuginosa is just one of the many bacteria that can cause a secondary infection, resulting in a problem. H. influenza, S. aureus, any common bug that people with healthy immune systems can fight off normally, immuno-compromised cannot. So in response, you are wrong. P. aureuginosa does NOT cause cystic fibrosis.
In a normal setting, if people don’t know something they are naturally curious and want to learn before making such comments. Just like this brilliant kid did, he learnt and research and applied, didn’t just walk around making big shot comments. I did a thesis on reducing carbon emissions using bacteria last year (specifically the methanogen Methylosinus sporium and P. aeruginosa) and for any fellow science lovers that are interested in this topic (scientific aspect, not the social), check out any work by Drs Murrell or Dumont for some of the potential applications (”Duplication of the mmoX gene in Methylosinus sporium: cloning, sequencing and mutational analysis” is one).
Kudos to this kid
December 21st, 2009 at 12:05 am
PLASTIC BAGS== THERE’S ALWAYS GOOD AND BAD STORIES ABOUT PLASTIC BAGS AND BOTTLES. WHERE I LIVE WE LIKE PLASTIC BAGS AND I’VE TOLD EVERYONE THAT IF I GO SHOPPING IN THEIR STORES AND THEY DONT HAVE PLASTIC BAGS, I WILL WALK OUT AND NOT RETURN. I LIKE PLASTIC BAGS. IF PEOPLE WOULD PICK UP THEIR GARBAGE AND PUT THEM WHERE THEY BELONG, IT WOULD END THE PLASTIC BAG PROBLEM. WHEN I TALK THE WORLD LITERAL LISTENS. HAVE A NICE DAY AND USE ONLY PLASTIC BAGS.
December 21st, 2009 at 3:46 pm
The ignorance in the comments is amazing. I hope that this is a sample of the ‘environmentally conscious,’ and does not reflect upon the population as a whole.
That being said, congrats to this kid for earning a scholly! I think that it’s pretty widely published (known) that bacteria can degrade plastics. It’s an engineering problem. How do you scale up economically? That’s the real problem.
December 22nd, 2009 at 9:27 am
This is more of a political problem it seems than an engineering problem. There are places in the southern US where temperatures regularly reach 37 degrees. The amount of energy needed to maintain that temperature would be less in those places than in, say, Michigan (which is where I live), where everyone (including Canadians) seem to love to ship their trash. Heating and cooling an enclosed trash facility in warmer states would require much less energy than in much colder states (of course, the first thought that comes to my mind when I think of how to heat a large enclosed facility is greenhouses). The problem, of course, is the NIMBY people (and it is a valid concern). Many folks in the warmer states do not want and are not going to want trash to be shipped to their states from elsewhere, regardless of how much they might be paid to have it so.
December 22nd, 2009 at 10:56 am
Its kinda ridiculous how many people try and turn this little forum thing into an argument, and a lot of people sound like they’re just lookin for someone to insult or something. Its kinda dissapointing, kid comes up with the start to a decent idea to solve some problems of ours and everyones gotta come on here and start hatin. anyway i can agree it still presents environmental issues but it can be worked on, props to him for bein innovative.
December 22nd, 2009 at 11:56 am
this comment section shines more light on this story than the story itself! Adults immediately jump to the “what about the after-effects of the ‘medicine’? Good thing this kid didnt get caught up in your negativity, he might have given up, like you did.
Simple solution: Create the optimal environment, decompose the bags (and other slow degraders), and keep it that way. Then, get this craziness, INVEST IN CONTAINMENT. Period. Landfills are dirty, this kid is talking about producing specific dirtiness. Nothing else changes. Air and ground pollution actually reduces due to the average disposed item degrading quicker than the alternative.
Here’s the real sh!tty part: You’ll never know. How do you compare one set of results to an imaginary result that COULD have been. It’s redundant, and counterproductive.
A+ to the kid, this is so simple, it will work if the adults STFU
December 22nd, 2009 at 11:58 am
it’s much like the septic tank products that eat the waste faster. think of the landfill as the septic tank. this is so simple, its brilliant.
December 22nd, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Brilliance!
December 22nd, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Yeah, this is a good exercise and possibly a real solution for this huge problem. We should invest in more ideas like these. Designers and other creatives should join these kind of ventures too, to solve all the other problems.
But we should also be careful. We should watch out for what are the consequences of this bacteria concentration. When we discover something we can’t just grab the solution like some sort of antidote to all bad things. Let us find out what are the counter-backs too. Nature (where we are and what we are) is tricky.
Anyway, this is very good.
December 22nd, 2009 at 5:33 pm
There are already several companies that use microorganisms to remediate landfills and contaminated sites, this is in no way a new development.
December 22nd, 2009 at 7:01 pm
This seems rather akin to mutating viruses to be more virulent. This is creating bacteria that degrade plastic. Think about the things we use plastic for: food containers, vehicle parts, buildings, HVAC systems, medical hardware, IV bags, etc. This seems like the kind of research that should be classified as potentially harmful and sealed away. The government does this with research projects already, as in the instance of the pHD student who had his network vulnerability research classified as potentially harmful. Of course, all technology comes with potential for abuse, but the devastating effects that this could have are rather overwhelming IMHO.
December 22nd, 2009 at 7:52 pm
@ 76: We are not creating bacteria that can degrade plastic…these bacteria can already degrade petroleum products. This is how oil spills are cleaned in respect to bioremediation techniques. The bacteria require a very specific set of conditions in order to grow, otherwise they do not grow.
@ those who think that “unleashing bacteria” is going to overrun the Earth: We aren’t unleashing anything, we are simply going to be taking bacteria that OCCUR NATURALLY and allowing them to flourish in an area that they can grow in…being plastic compost piles. The bacteria can not grow in humans or any other living organism because their requirements for life are not available inside an organism. In short, don’t let your very limited knowledge of bacteria (which is limited to pathogenic bacteria) taint this kid’s brilliant idea.
This is another proof that the new wave of technologies is going to be coming from microbes and the field of Microbiology. An example is the using bacteria in order to create Hydrogen from sugar. This technology is already patented and we may see Hydrogen fuel actually become a realization within the next 20-25 years.
Back to the article, A+ I hope this person gets to thoroughly research his idea, and hopefully the idea will come to fruition
December 22nd, 2009 at 8:14 pm
@77: You’re right. I had mistaken this for something I had read earlier, regarding a student who was attempting to selectively cull bacteria that would degrade plastic, and essentially evolve a strain that could consume the plastic more quickly. As you say, this student merely identified strains that already do this.
December 22nd, 2009 at 10:36 pm
I really like Jim’s comments.
I have a hard time understanding people that think it is not possible to do things, closemindedness is foolish.
I appreciate people that can bring clarity to situations. The bacteria exist currently, however die when not in the proper enviornments, so no matter how many we release they will not destroy what we don’t want them to because they will not exist outside the contained area.
December 23rd, 2009 at 11:02 am
Couple of comments.
1) In regards to getting the bacteria to 37degrees, this could probably be done in combination with another type of bacteria what produces heat as a byproduct of a similar process. Possibly even set off a change reaction so it is self sustaining in a closed facility.
2) The real genious will be when someone figures out how to get bacteria to decompose the great pacific garbage patch. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch
A type of bacteria that can decompose plastic while its in sea water!
December 23rd, 2009 at 12:24 pm
[...] which conditions cause plastic to biodegrade. And he’s a Canuck. From Discover Magazine blog: “At 37 degrees and optimal bacterial concentration, the microbes had consumed 43 percent of [...]
December 24th, 2009 at 1:00 am
I think this kid’s off to a great start…maybe try this out in controlled areas so it’s not being released into the environment, but tested on sample ground w/ a firm base beneath it so it’s not harmful to whatever is under the soil…branch out slowly…or just keep it all in a large warehouse…or several.
Yes, I’m a firm believer in recycling and do so myself, but this problem is going to be around for awhile so what’s the harm in trying something productive…again, in a controlled area.
December 24th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
This is impressive for a science fair. Kudos to the kid. However it is not quite as useful as the article makes out. What he did was look around and find the best bacteria to decompose plastic. Even in optimum conditions these bacterial strains are only marginally suited for this purpose.
For this bacteria to be actually useful (on an industrial/environmental scale ) one would have to extensively modify it. So 43% of a sample in six weeks sounds impressive. However the sample was probably something like a 1cm square of 50 micron thick plastic. So that means in six weeks in perfect conditions the bacterial soup processed something like 0.000000005kg or 5ug of plastic.
So this proces which undoubtably required growth medium and chemicals in much much bigger quantities than the processed plastic itself it is just not scalable.
This is not all bad news. The idea is sound and the bacteria found might be a good starting point for GM engineers. However it’s those engineers that need to do all the hard work to actually make a useful product.
December 25th, 2009 at 2:01 am
As a PhD student in Microbiology, it pains me to read most of these comments. The ignorance that plagues most people shadows this study’s experimental design and limits its potential. I’ve studied bacterial metabolism for eight years, and the practicallity of this kid’s idea is very real. Microorganisms have acted as manipulatable catalysts in tons of beneficial situations! It is evident from above that the people who are concerned with only the environmental aspects of this story lack enough understanding to even discuss ideas intelligently.
December 27th, 2009 at 4:54 am
This kid deserves a lot more than a scholarship and first prize at a science fair! If I were him, I would patent my idea and sell to the highest bidder or start my own company.
December 27th, 2009 at 8:15 am
If we didn’t use so much plastic we wouldn’t need to recycle therefore we wouldn’t need the bacteria.
Learn to live without.
When you buy something think of the consequences in the future not just with your pocketbook.
We went from paper bags to plastic bags to hemp bags. Paper was biodegradable we stopped using it because it destroyed our trees, we should stop using plastic because it destroys life on our planet, plastic isn’t biodegradable.
We used to have glass soda bottles now they’re plastic. Which is better for the environment.
Be considerate of your future and learn to live without.
December 27th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
This step forward to save the environment and reducing carbon, can I take the details or if you want send to my email address Thank you
December 28th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
OH MY GOSH!!! I went to Kitchener Collegiate Institute which is a rival high school in the region, and I KNEW HIM!! Not like close, or anything, but acquaintances. WAY TO GO, DAN!!! WAY TO SAVE THE WORLD!!
December 28th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Amazing what one mind can do, and a high-schooler’s mind at that. I’m glad I read this though… as I’ve always found it depressing when reading about all the ecological damage that plastic bags do, especially since so many people are too lazy to recycle them.
December 28th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
What a sad day……for big govt…now someone has gone and found out a solution to a problem and the govt has to work overtime in order to find a way to stop this. – regulations, taxes, laws, guidelines, bylines, pipelines…… or just lines. It’s more work for them. Maybe if we all get together we can stop the madness of cleaning up our world. C’mon who’s with me .. . . . .we’re going streaking!!!!!!
December 28th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
really appreciable……….. great work…keep it up
December 29th, 2009 at 10:48 am
What is the waste product of the process? Even microbes poop – or something similar.
December 29th, 2009 at 11:48 am
wow.. 20,000 scholarship, and he saves the world… uhm i say make it a full ride to college, + transportation “hybrid car of his choice” and meals paid for throughout college…. cheap bastards!!!!
December 29th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
This kid figures this out and they give Obama a Nobel Prize??? wtf is wrong with this picture? make this kid president!
December 29th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
This information is controversial. At least we are starting to think about the future.
December 30th, 2009 at 4:54 am
Grete !!!!
December 30th, 2009 at 7:58 am
An interesting project but there are some concerns that some commenters on the article have already pointed out. Before I get to those though, I must emphasise that the article itself could be better written.
1) Serendipity: It would appear that the student made a watery solution containing “house-hold chemicals” (whatever those were, presumably mainly salts and sugars) seeded with yeast and applied that to a ground-up mixture of plastic, which was subsequently contaminated later on with bacteria. It is not clear why yeast are necessary other than acting as food source directly (as prey) or indirectly (bacteria living off their metabolites derived from the salts and sugars), unless they began but could not complete the plastic degradation process which was then completed by the bacteria. Kudos to the fellow for later identifying the most effective species, although I’m not sure how he had time to realise that the mixture was contaminated wth multiple bacterial species, set-out to isolate those species (which would require culturing on agar plates for several days), then repeat the experiment with isolated strains of bacteria.
2) How to be sure that plastic is being degraded: ” the plastic exposed to the live bacteria was 17 percent lighter than the control after six weeks”. It is not clear in what vessels these experiments were conducted in. I would hope that he prevented things such as evaporation occurring, in which case, the loss of mass would presumably be due to the degradation of the plastic compounds into gaseous molecules small enough to escape from the containers (i.e. hydrogen, carbon doxide).
3) Pedanticism: I also resent the implication that yeast are conflated as being bacterial; they’re not, they’re fungal. That is more a criticism of the article writer rather than the experiments though.
Now onto the criticisms from other commenters that I agree with.
4) Carbon dioxide release: If the bacteria are degrading the plastic then the release of carbon dioxide is a real possibility and concern. I’m not going to go into the global warming debate now, but for the sake of argument I shall assume that carbon dioxide release is a problem. Perhaps it would be preferable if plastic was recyled rather than degraded.
5) The economics: “At 37 degrees and optimal bacterial concentration, the microbes had consumed 43 percent of a plastic sample within six weeks. ” Bearing in mind that the plastic needs to be first collected before even doing anything to it, it then has to be ground up before adding to huge vats containing large amounts of bacteria that have to be fed and kept at 37 degrees Celsius. At such a large scale, some kind of stirring mechanism would probably also be necessary. All this to achieve a 43% breakdown over 6 weeks is not going to be financially viable and appealing enough for someone to not already be doing it.
This commenter summarises my thoughts on this matter
“45. Ben Says:
December 18th, 2009 at 10:40 am
I think it is great to try to think of new solutions for environmental issues, but I would like to point out that this is not groundbreaking. Maximizing microbial degradation of wastes by tweaking parameters like surface area and ambient conditions is what many engineers do for a living. Probably, the only reason this technique has not already been “discovered” is because it isn’t economically feasible to do this on a large scale. Unfortunately, putting plastic bags in a landfill is a heck-of-a-lot cheaper than constructing specialized digesters for plastic bags. Sorry for being a hater….”
However, someone claiming to have relevant expertise thinks that the student is onto a good idea.
“83. Niki Says:
December 25th, 2009 at 2:01 am
As a PhD student in Microbiology, it pains me to read most of these comments. The ignorance that plagues most people shadows this study’s experimental design and limits its potential. I’ve studied bacterial metabolism for eight years, and the practicallity of this kid’s idea is very real. Microorganisms have acted as manipulatable catalysts in tons of beneficial situations! ….”
I would certainly approve of this guy doing well in his science-fair and he undoubtedly deserves the scholarship. The idea needs working on however and he obviously isn’t the first to come up with the idea.
December 30th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
[...] 30, 2009 16 year old student, Daniel Burd, knows that there’s a lot of plastic bags out there and that they take far too long to [...]
December 30th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
It is nice to know that we are going to leave the Earth in the capable hands of the next generation. As someone who celebrated the very first Earth Day…great job Daniel Burd.
December 31st, 2009 at 12:51 am
The logical next step would be to identify the metabolic pathways that allow the bacteria to digest plastic, and if we’re lucky, identify the genes responsible. Engineer some algae or plankton with those genes functioning, and we got a sure-fire way of getting rid of that sea of plastic in the middle of the Atlantic!
December 31st, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Its true I cant believe how ignorant some ppl are about bacteria in the real world. “Using anti-bacterial soap will cause bacteria extinction & releasing bacteria into the world will eat any plastic in its way” are some of the really shallow comments I’ve read.
Fact is bacteria is used to produce insulin, all sorts of medicine humans consume and for gene therapy in controlled environments, I haven’t witnessed an epidemic risen from some bacteria leak out from any labaratory so far. People need to understand in this case that this specific strand of plastic eating bacteria already exist in the air we breath, but it can only dedgrade plastic in 1000 years under atmospheric condition. Under controlled condition however, we can catalyse the reaction just like what Daniel has done.
January 1st, 2010 at 5:33 pm
As an old Bronx HS of Science grad circa 1944 I was very impressed.
Good for you (and the rest of us.)
And Happy New Year.
warren langer
January 1st, 2010 at 9:38 pm
[...] It’s In the Bag! Teenager Wins Science Fair, Solves Massive Environmental Problem | Discoblog | Di… (tags: science environment ecology education) [...]
January 1st, 2010 at 10:38 pm
I can promise you that the majority of the idiotic comments here are from Americans that went through our retched public school system. And I can say that as I am an American who had to augment my “public” education with plenty of extra-curricular reading and study.
It does not surprise me that this young man is from Canada, which places a much higher priority on education in their “public” system and in their society in general. In America the only “hero’s” seem to be sports stars and entertainment types.
Kudos to this young man for sure.
January 2nd, 2010 at 8:30 am
Plastic is an OIL based product, natural or synthetic, which explains the TRUE COST of OIL per barrel!!! The Oil Companies of the WORLD are not stupid , think about this: while people were looking at how to get better gas milage for vehicles, the auto industry was forced to make cars LIGHTER and what did they use, PLASTIC, hence OIL!!! The World economy would fail if we stopped using OIL isn’t that nice!!!!
January 3rd, 2010 at 6:17 am
[...] A teenager from Canada has come up with a painfully simple sollution to the problem of plastic bag build up. Full story here. [...]
January 3rd, 2010 at 9:09 am
Great, but why can’t we just make new plastic bags from old plastic bags?
January 5th, 2010 at 10:27 am
Hey…I have a great idea to stop this growing issue….stop creating the problem, and stop making plastic bags. Wow…that was hard.
January 5th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
@B
Because there are certain plactics which cannot be recycled. Plactic bottle and trays can be recycled because they use a certain length of hydrocarbon chains. Plastic bags however, are too thin to use this length, so they need to shorten them to make them thinner. This makes it impossible to break up the hydrocarbons to reform them into other materials. Basically, you can’t do it.
January 6th, 2010 at 8:38 am
Amazing, brilliant I hope this young man sticks to his science I think we will need more of his help.
January 6th, 2010 at 9:27 am
I have a better idea. Let’s stop making plastic bags altogether. Go back to paper using a much faster renewable resource that doesn’t use as many harmful chemicals – Hemp!
January 8th, 2010 at 4:08 pm
This kid won an 11th grade science fair so props to him…he uncovered a basic truth to our earth and is using this in a constructive manner. He isn’t supposed to know all the details. Yay for science fairs.
January 8th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
Kim: You bring up an interesting point. I read somewhere that the bacteria is not so much the problem as the plastic. Even though plastic is made smaller and smaller through the breakdown process including grinding and bacteria, it never actually disappears, the small plastic pieces, just get smaller and smaller. This means that they can be ingested by bugs, animals, etc. and could possibly be harmful in return.
January 8th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
Put a plastic bag or 2 in a compost. It will brake down quickly.
January 9th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
To all the nay-sayers and people dismissing this as ‘not that great’ consider that although he didn’t invent the bacteria, and discovered something that already existed: He actually thought to look for them, and found a way to optimize their presence, something that no one has done before. Many people credited with great discoveries did just that, found something that already existed. You think Newton invented gravity?
Go kid!
January 9th, 2010 at 7:00 pm
[...] Teenager Wins Science Fair, Solves Massive Environmental Problem Researchers have been wracking their brains for years to figure out a solution. But leave it to a Canadian high school student to leave them all in the dust. Daniel Burd, an 11th grader at Waterloo Collegiate Institute, has discovered a way to make plastic bags degrade in as little as three months—a finding that won him first prize at the Canada-Wide Science Fair, a $20,000 scholarship, and a chance to revolutionize a major environmental issue. [...]
January 11th, 2010 at 7:36 am
They only gave him $20,000.00 for that. I hope that he patented the idea so that some big company doesn’t get there greedy hands on it and cheat him out of any royalties that he could earn. This should set him up for life.
January 11th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
Well, the guy is definitely unique.
Too bad, he’s probably won’t be given a real chance to save the planet =[
January 14th, 2010 at 10:03 am
Do any of you realize that it uses more energy to recycle a plastic bag than it takes to make a new one?
January 14th, 2010 at 11:56 am
This guy solves a huge problem and all he gets is a $20k scholarship? That should earn a full ride at least. Go Canada!
January 20th, 2010 at 10:07 am
He’s just gotta work even harder to make sure that this technique can actually be implemented now. Not knowing too much about the bacteria itself personally, I don’t know if this would be a safe technique to practise outdoors in a landfill, but it obviously needs to be done in a controlled environments, so it seems that it would have to be done in a facility of some kind.
January 25th, 2010 at 9:22 am
Okay,I have read the previous 120 posts, and either I am missing something or everyone else is. Plastic bags are a big problem. This is a fact. Isolating a bacteria that can break plastic down is a good thing, so far as we know right now. Yet other arguments such as we should use hemp, or reduce re-use and recycle miss the point: we DON”T use hemp, and we DON”T recycle everything, and we STILL make plastic bags. Offering solutions of the wishful thinking variety (as in “if I were king I would make everyone do it my way and that would solve everything”) are not all that useful. Saying that this bacteria is impractical because we would have to build big processing plants for it to work and it would be too expensive, also misses the point. So, what is the point? I would like to suggest that this is a problem in which there is no one simple solution. Just like a doctor who takes care of his patients with a spectrum of remedies, from prevention to surgery, this student has added one more weapon in our anti-pollution arsenal. We need to use ALL the methods at our disposal (pardon the pun). We can not depend on every person recycling every plastic bag. We just don’t live in that kind of world. We may not be able to take care of every plastic bag on the planet with this bacteria either.
I can think of a few simple ways that this could help, and it won’t cost a fortune. Sorry you all, I am not a scientist, so feel free to tell me what a dope I am! Anyway, instead of processing great loads of plastic and trying to get them to decompose very fast, why not compromise? It seems to me that compromise solutions are the ones that have a hope of working, given the argumentative and uncooperative nature of our species. Can we not make plastic with the bacteria already in it? Wouldn’t it then have a sort of shelf life? And wouldn’t that shelf life be like the ones we use for dairy products for example, which depend on ideal conditions to determine the expiration date? So some of the plastic will take a bit longer to go away because it is in colder place. Or maybe they could put something in the plastic that encourages the bacteria to grow a little faster? This is a new thing in a way, even though this type of bacteria has been understood for a while. It is news to me and many others, so who knows what will happen if someone decides to run with the idea? I guess that I am saying that there is not any ONE solution to plastic pollution, or climate change, or any number of problems we must confront today. But at least this kid managed to come up with part of the solution, for which he deserves much praise.
February 1st, 2010 at 12:00 am
I’m amazed that so many readers have missed Mr. Burds main point – plastic in landfills biodegrades naturally. It happened faster when he provided warmth and a nutrient, that’s all. Plastic doesn’t last thousands of years in the soil because many different microorganisms eat plastics. This wasn’t some new, mutant strain – it is a microorganism found in soil everywhere. If we managed to kill off all of these microorganisms, we would die, because they create soil out of cellulose. We need soil to grow crops. Our company, BioGreen Products Co. makes ordinary plastic more biodegradable in the soil by adding an additive that makes it smell more tasty to microorganisms that can eat plastic, so that they biodegrade more quickly in landfills. This biodegradable disposable product line (plastic cutlery, plastic cups, straws, etc.) is called Earth Nurture, and you can read about it at earthnurture.com .
February 4th, 2010 at 12:54 am
[...] http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2008/05/27/its-in-the-bag-teenager-wins-science-fair-sol... [...]
February 7th, 2010 at 6:01 am
Excellent piece of work
February 9th, 2010 at 10:03 am
[...] It’s In the Bag! Teenager Wins Science Fair, Solves Massive Environmental Problem (click back) // // [...]
February 11th, 2010 at 4:40 pm
I haven’t read all of the ~120 comments, but I have this to ask – even if the bacteria are ‘naturally-occurring’ and naturally plastic-consuming, is tweaking them (which will likely be required to scale up to industrial volumes) going to result in any untoward effects? Even sans tweaking, OK, they eat plastic – but what waste do they produce? Is it plastic-y? Is it totally OK for the environment? Also, if you do scale up, I mean, people can digest/handle certain levels of toxins in their bodies with no problem, but if you up the dose and cross a threshold – catastrophe. So maybe the only way for the plastic-eating bacteria to consume at rates commercially viable will kill them, and that won’t help anyone.
And yes, the first step of the 3R’s is to REDUCE, and we do need to reduce our plastic-dependency greatly (but large-scale behavioral change is just such a tough nut to crack …)
February 12th, 2010 at 1:58 am
This is great work for a high school student, but it does not solve the real problem. Sure, you can degrade plastic bags under controlled conditions, but you could also recycle them into useful materials such as patio decking and weatherproof fencing. The problem with plastic pollution is that it is by definition in places where bacteria are not very effective, such as in the ocean or buried in cool earth. Otherwise, the naturally occurring bacteria would have already evolved to eat plastic by now. Also, the byproducts of biodegraded plastic may not be all that good to put in the food chain.
The solution seems to be on the production side. There has been some progress in creating plant based plastics. They have the advantage of not being petroleum based, being more rapidly biodegradable and biodegrading into safer organic compounds.
February 14th, 2010 at 6:04 pm
they should just stop making them, even with this technique plastic isnt going to just disapear into thin air, whatever eats it will become it, even in spores, it needs to be used for something else, recycled, for house hold use
February 20th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
Why would we want the bacteria to eat the bags? Wouldn’t they be put to better use if we recycled them on to other products?
February 24th, 2010 at 9:00 pm
This is amazing!!! I always feel guilty when I forget my reusable bags…
March 1st, 2010 at 11:25 pm
What if it will spread and learn how to eat all other plastics which you use? What are you going to do then? Will you cry out SOS or what?
March 7th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
The kid would be a real genius if he could figure out how to get everyone to stop consuming so much oil. If we didn’t buy so much sh*t, we wouldn’t need all those plastic bags in the first place.
We need a change of mindset. Not some new method to help sustain our grandiose lifestyles.
March 12th, 2010 at 1:13 am
This kid has a good future in science, although I would say I suspect a microbiologist is in his family seeing as he was isolating strains of psudomonas which requires delicate training and knowledge. The psedomonas species of bacteria is well known for its metabolical diversity and has been used extensively in cleaning contaminates like during oil spills and the clean up of new orleans after katrina. These bacteria can use just about anything carbon for its carbon source so plastic bags which are carbon made from oil which is also a carbon are not so different. Psedomonas is also a spoiler bacteria not a pathogenic bacteria so that should not be a concern here. It is not hard to imagine that using some of the cursory work he has done here could be put into a industrial system using large rendering vats keep at optimal enviroments for growth could be used. Another point to be made here is the biproducts of psedomonas were not mentioned here, many bacteria create useful bi products such as methane gas and alcohols such as ethanol both of which are currently being utilized in energy production as fuels that have less carbon impact and are renewable. Bravo kid and dont let uneducated nuts worry you about health risks and bacteria people will always fear what they do not understand or know anything about.
March 14th, 2010 at 12:28 am
Sooo, in case anyone is wondering what part of Canada and some U.S. states are already implementing regarding Plastic bags…. Follow this link: http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2010/02/22/consumer-plastic-bag.html …. No reply necessary.
March 17th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
i didnt read it all but i just want to know how to make reusabble plastic bags i only have 2 days left what should i do for eco earth science fair tell me plz plz plz
March 17th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
oh i forgot to tell u i am in 5 th grade