A sixteen year old schoolboy may have solved a problem for PhD students

An American school boy has developed a method of biodegrading plastic at a faster rate than previously thought possible. Sixteen year old Daniel Burd used yeast to speed up the degredation rate of plastic metabolising microbes and then isolated the most productive organisms. He continued this process of selecting the most active bacteria and following inbreeding and optimisation of temperatures, achieved 43% degradation of plastic in six weeks. Considering plastic is believed to take up to 1000 years to decompose, this result is impressive.

Further tests need to be carried out to ensure that bi products of the deradation process are not carcinogenic, as is the case in the metabolism of styrene and benzene. This undoubtedly remains a major scientific breakthrough as tons of plastic waste continue to litter our beaches and hedgerows each year.You can read more about this story on the mnn website.