Canadian student isolates microbe that lunches on plastic bags

[laststeamtrain]

WCI student isolates microbe that lunches on plastic bags

Karen Kawawada
RECORD STAFF

WATERLOO

Getting ordinary plastic bags to rot away like banana peels would be an environmental dream come true.

After all, we produce 500 billion a year worldwide and they take up to 1,000 years to decompose. They take up space in landfills, litter our streets and parks, pollute the oceans and kill the animals that eat them.

Now a Waterloo teenager has found a way to make plastic bags degrade faster -- in three months, he figures.

Daniel Burd's project won the top prize at the Canada-Wide Science Fair in Ottawa. He came back with a long list of awards, including a $10,000 prize, a $20,000 scholarship, and recognition that he has found a practical way to help the environment.

Daniel, a 16-year-old Grade 11 student at Waterloo Collegiate Institute, got the idea for his project from everyday life.

"Almost every week I have to do chores and when I open the closet door, I have this avalanche of plastic bags falling on top of me," he said. "One day, I got tired of it and I wanted to know what other people are doing with these plastic bags."

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http://news.therecord.com/article/354044#=rss
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[rpannier]

1. Very impressive

He's obviously quite smart

[Xipe Totec]

2. The Andromeda Strain

As in the book, the story begins when a satellite drops into a remote part of Utah. A small-town yokel opens it, and before long, people are dying horrible deaths or committing violent suicide. Turns out, a killer bug has been unleashed, which causes blood to clot into powder and threatens humankind.

...

And if there weren't enough people and facts to keep up with, we also have to track the deadly disease through the hills of southern Utah, where it adapts into a force that can disintegrate plastic and turn birds into crazy killing machines.

[laststeamtrain]

3. & only the Sterno drinkers can survive.

Oh, yeah & Keith Richards.

:hi:

[applegrove]

4. I'm so proud.

[silverweb]

5. Awesome.

I'm envisioning hundreds of refitted cargo ships, their holds turned into floating fermenters, processing the _"Great Pacific Garbage Patch"_ -- just for starters.

[JohnWxy]

6. Definitely should be nominated for a Nobel prize. recommended!

[agent46]

7. Mutant 59???

Mutant 59: The Plastic Eaters; Gerry Davis, Kit Pedler

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/d/gerry-davis/mutant-59.htm

I remember reading this in H.S. and enjoying it quite a bit. Now I had no idea a plastic loving microbe actually exists!

(Pssst - Don't you just love the Solaris effect?)

:smoke: