06-14-2009
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#25 (permalink)
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Creating
Location: North of Sydney Australia
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Re: Tips for jumpstarting "wee beasties" in terra preta?
Just grow your own custom-made bacteria???
Quote:
Boy discovers microbe that eats plastic
 PhDs have been searching for a solution to the plastic waste problem, and this 16-year-old finds the answer.
. . .
That was Daniel's question which he put to the test by a very simple and clever process of immersing ground plastic in a yeast solution that encourages microbial growth, and then isolating the most productive organisms.
The preliminary results were encouraging, so he kept at it, selecting out the most effective strains and interbreeding them.
After several weeks of tweaking and optimizing temperatures Burd was achieved a 43 % degradation of plastic in six weeks, an almost inconceivable accomplishment.
With 500 billion plastic bags manufactured each year and a Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch that grows more expansive by the day, a low cost and nontoxic method for degrading plastic is the stuff of environmentalists' dreams and, I would hazard a guess, a pretty good start-up company as well.
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Boy discovers microbe that eats plastic | MNN - Mother Nature Network
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"Unemployment is capitalism's way of getting you to plant a garden."
~Orson Scott Card 
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