Post by Rhonda on Jun 4, 2008 3:34:27 GMT -5
Plastics, and plastic bags, in particular, have a nasty habit of sticking
around long after they're wanted. A plastic bag can take as long as
1,000 years to decompose naturally.
Thanks to the smart thinking of Daniel Burd, a 16-year-old boy from
Waterloo, Ontario, there is a solution to speed up the process.
Burd recently won $30,000 in scholarships and prize money at
the Canada-Wide Science Fair for his groundbreaking
environmental project: a solution that can biodegrade plastic
bags in a mere three months.
Burd came up with the concept while working on household
chores one day. "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."
He spent weeks on a trial-and-error process to isolate a
group of microorganisms that would quickly degrade
plastic bags, and soon came up with a winning combination.
"All you need is a fermenter . . . your growth medium,
your microbes and your plastic bags."
His invention could easily be used for wider application,
and may lead to a dramatic speedup in plastic back
degradation the world over. "This is a huge, huge step
forward," he said. "We're using nature to solve a
man-made problem."
You can read his report (PDF) here.
www.gimundo.com/Articles/Daily/1057/5/26/2008/16-Year-Old_Creates_Solution_to_Decompose_Plastic_Bags
around long after they're wanted. A plastic bag can take as long as
1,000 years to decompose naturally.
Thanks to the smart thinking of Daniel Burd, a 16-year-old boy from
Waterloo, Ontario, there is a solution to speed up the process.
Burd recently won $30,000 in scholarships and prize money at
the Canada-Wide Science Fair for his groundbreaking
environmental project: a solution that can biodegrade plastic
bags in a mere three months.
Burd came up with the concept while working on household
chores one day. "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."
He spent weeks on a trial-and-error process to isolate a
group of microorganisms that would quickly degrade
plastic bags, and soon came up with a winning combination.
"All you need is a fermenter . . . your growth medium,
your microbes and your plastic bags."
His invention could easily be used for wider application,
and may lead to a dramatic speedup in plastic back
degradation the world over. "This is a huge, huge step
forward," he said. "We're using nature to solve a
man-made problem."
You can read his report (PDF) here.
www.gimundo.com/Articles/Daily/1057/5/26/2008/16-Year-Old_Creates_Solution_to_Decompose_Plastic_Bags