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A promising new method for breaking down plastic would finally allow us to do something useful with hard-to-recycle waste.

Polyethylene plastics — in particular, the ubiquitous plastic bag that blights the landscape — are notoriously hard to recycle. They’re sturdy and difficult to break down, and if they’re recycled at all, they’re melted into a polymer stew useful mostly for decking and other low-value products. But a new process developed at the University ofPolyethylene plastics — in particular, the ubiquitous plastic bag that blights the landscape — are notoriously hard to recycle. They’re sturdy and difficult to break down, and if they’re recycled at all, they’re melted into a polymer ste...

A promising new method for breaking down plastic would finally allow us to do something useful with hard-to-recycle waste.

Synthetic biology project endows bacterium with artificial metalloenzyme, enabling it to execute an "unnatural" chemical reaction.

Adapted from a UC Berkeley news release. Synthetic biologists have successfully engineered microbes to make chemicals cheaply and more sustainably. However, researchers have been limited by the fact that microbes can only make molecules using chemical reactions seen in nature. A collaboration between scientists at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley has engineered the microbe E. coli to produce a molecule that, until now, could only be synthesized in a laboratory. To achieve this outcome, the researchers integrated a specific type of modified enzyme into E. coli, along with a pathway to produce a pre...