Many micro organisms that can do this have already been found, but they can usually only work at temperatures above 30C. This means that using them in industrial practice is prohibitively expensive because of the heating required. It also means using them is not carbon neutral.
Scientists from the Swiss Federal Institute WSL have found microbes that can do this at 15C , which could lead to a breakthrough in microbial recycling. Their findings have been published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology.
Dr Joel Rüthi from WSL and colleagues sampled 19 strains of bacteria and 15 of fungi growing on free-lying or intentionally buried plastic kept in the ground for one year in Greenland, Switzerland and Svalbard in Norway. They let the microbes grow as single-strain cultures in the laboratory in darkness at 15C and tested them to see if they could digest different types of plastic.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der May 19, 2023-Ausgabe von The Guardian Weekly.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der May 19, 2023-Ausgabe von The Guardian Weekly.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
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The elegiac quality of Haruki Murakami's new novel, his first in six years, was perhaps inevitable considering its origins. The City and Its Uncertain Walls began as an attempt to rework a 1980 story of the same title, originally published in the Japanese magazine Bungakukai, which Murakami, unsatisfied, never allowed to be republished or translated.
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It's high time to tax cannabis and fix French finances
France might not be broke, but the state of its public finances is, well, definitely not good. Total debt stands at €3.2tn ($3.4tn) - 112% of GDP. Interest payments on that debt are the second largest public expenditure after education (which includes everything from crêche, or preschool, to universities) and are higher than the amount spent on defence. And this year's budget deficit is projected to be 6%, three points above the EU's 3% limit.
