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Sustainability

Plastics recycling with microbes and worms is further away than people think

Headlines about plastic-eating organisms belie tough, competitive road to development

by Carmen Drahl
June 15, 2018 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 96, Issue 25
A hand holds a square sheet of polyethylene, on which three caterpillars have bored holes.

Credit: Spanish National Research Council/Caption: These polyethylene-eating caterpillars launched a media feeding frenzy, but it's not certain they biochemically degrade the plastic. | These polyethylene-eating caterpillars launched a media feeding frenzy, but it's not certain they biochemically degrade the plastic.

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Credit: John McGeehan/University of Portsmouth
Watch a 360° rotation of the crystal structure of the PET-degrading enzyme (green space fill) with PET (yellow, blue, and red stick structure) docked in the active site.

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