Why might your snack wrapper contain 100 others?
Every year, the EU generates more than 20 million tonnes of plastic waste, but less than 30 % is recycled, with complex plastics – multilayered films and blends – often burned or buried. The EU-funded UPLIFT(opens in new window) project designed an innovative solution that uses bacteria to digest composite plastics into their constituent monomers, which are then grown into new, easier to recycle biopolymers. It has now been featured in the CORDIS series of explanatory videos titled ‘Make the connection with EU science’. “This is an urgent problem; by 2050 it is estimated that plastics production and incineration could release emissions equivalent to over 600 coal plants annually,” says UPLIFT researcher Cristiano Varrone. The project achieved pilot-scale enzymatic depolymerisation of 25 kg of real plastic waste, and the production of novel biopolymers in a 1 500 litre reactor. With a patent on chimeric enzymes already secured, the team is now working to optimise the processes, reducing the cost of upcycling and biopolymer production. ‘Make the connection with EU science’ is a series of explanatory videos focusing on the scientific content and exploitation aspects of EU research projects.