Student Finds a Way to Degrade Plastic Bags
We all know that plastic bags are bad for the environment. And we all know why it’s important to do something about the plastic bag problem. Most plastic bags can take up to 1,000 years to degrade. Until now that is.
Daniel Burd, a Canadian high school student has discovered a method for degrading polyethylene plastic bags. He made this exciting discovery during a science project. He wanted to prove that a procedure could be developed to degrade plastic bags.
The discovery won Burd first place prize of $9,800 in the Canada-Wide Science Fair, the Waterloo, Ontario. Burd has also received almost $34,000 in college scholarship offers.
During the project, Burd was able to degrade 43 percent of a plastic bag within six weeks. Burd plans to refine his process so that he can degrade the polyethylene in a much shorter timeframe.
Burd achieved the degradation by isolating microorganisms from soil, then using them to facilitate the degradation process.
This discovery sounds like it has a lot of potential. Of course, it’s early days yet, but wouldn’t it be great if a process could be developed to degrade all the plastic bags already scattered throughout the natural environment? And what if a process could be developed to degrade all the plastic lying in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?
Source: Red Orbit
Tags: plastic bag degradation, plastic bags
