Superworms capable of munching through plastic waste

A species of worm with an appetite for polystyrene could be the key to plastic recycling on a mass scale.

Researchers at the University of Queensland have discovered the common Zophobas morio ‘superworm’ can eat through polystyrene, thanks to a bacterial enzyme in their gut.

Dr Chris Rinke and his team from UQ’s School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences fed superworms different diets over a three week period, with some given polystyrene foam, some bran and others put on a fasting diet.

“We found the superworms fed a diet of just polystyrene not only survived, but even had marginal weight gains,” Dr Rinke said.

“This suggests the worms can derive energy from the polystyrene, most likely with the help of their gut microbes.”

The researchers used a technique called metagenomics to find several encoded enzymes with the ability to degrade polystyrene and styrene.

The long-term goal is to engineer enzymes to degrade plastic waste in recycling plants through mechanical shredding, followed by enzymatic biodegradation.

“Superworms are like mini recycling plants, shredding the polystyrene with their mouths and then feeding it to the bacteria in their gut,” Dr Rinke said.

“The breakdown products from this reaction can then be used by other microbes to create high-value compounds such as bioplastics.”

It’s hoped this bio-upcycling will incentivise plastic waste recycling and reduce landfill.

Co-author of the research, PhD candidate Jiarui Sun, said they aim to grow the gut bacteria in the lab and further test its ability to degrade polystyrene.

“We can then look into how we can upscale this process to a level required for an entire recycling plant,” Ms Sun said.

Dr Rinke said there are many opportunities for the biodegradation of plastic waste.

“Our team is very excited to push the science to make it happen,” he said.

https://www.uq.edu.au/

First evidence of microplastics in Antarctic snow

Most people see Antarctica as a pristine, relatively untouched place, but a new study published today has revealed the presence of microplastics – plastic pieces much smaller than a grain of rice – in freshly fallen Antarctic snow for the first time.

These findings, ‘First evidence of microplastics in Antarctic snow’ published in the scientific journal The Cryosphere, bring light to a serious threat to the Antarctic. Research has found that microplastics have negative impacts on environmental health (limiting growth, reproduction, and general biological functions in organisms, as well as negative implications for humans). On a wider scale, the presence of microplastic particles in the air has the potential to influence the climate by accelerating melting of snow and ice.

University of Canterbury PhD student Alex Aves collected snow samples from the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica in late 2019 as part of Gateway Antarctica’s Postgraduate Certificate of Antarctic Studies. (Gateway Antarctica is the Centre for Antarctic Studies and Research at the University of Canterbury.) At the time, there had been few studies investigating the presence of microplastics in the air, and it was unknown how widespread this problem was.

“When Alex travelled to Antarctica in 2019, we were optimistic that she wouldn’t find any microplastics in such a pristine and remote location,” Associate Professor in Environmental Physics Dr Laura Revell says. In addition to more remote sites, “we asked her to collect snow off the Scott Base and McMurdo Station roadways, so she’d have at least some microplastics to study”.

Once back in the lab, it quickly became obvious there were plastic particles in every sample from the remote sites on the Ross Ice Shelf too, and that the findings would be of global significance.

Aves, who recently graduated with a Master of Antarctic Studies degree with Distinction, says she was shocked by her findings.

“It’s incredibly sad but finding microplastics in fresh Antarctic snow highlights the extent of plastic pollution into even the most remote regions of the world,” she says. “We collected snow samples from 19 sites across the Ross Island region of Antarctica and found microplastics in all of these.”

“Looking back now, I’m not at all surprised,” Associate Professor Revell says. “From the studies published in the last few years we’ve learned that everywhere we look for airborne microplastics, we find them.”

Aves analysed snow samples using a chemical analysis technique (micro-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy) to identify the type of plastic particles present. The plastic particles were also looked at under a microscope to identify their colour, size and shape – all important observational information for future work.

The paper found an average of 29 microplastic particles per litre of melted snow, which is higher than marine concentrations reported previously from the surrounding Ross Sea and in Antarctic sea ice.

Immediately next to the scientific bases on Ross Island, Scott Base, and McMurdo Station, the largest station in Antarctica, the density of microplastics was nearly 3-times higher, with similar concentrations to those found in Italian glacier debris. There were 13 different types of plastic found, with the most common being PET, commonly used to make soft drink bottles and clothing.

The possible sources of microplastics were examined. Atmospheric modelling suggested microplastics may have travelled thousands of kilometres through the air, however it is equally likely the presence of humans in Antarctica has established a microplastic ‘footprint’, the researchers say.

Antarctica New Zealand environmental advisor Natasha Gardiner has described this UC research as “of huge value”.

“Alex and her colleagues’ research enables Antarctic Treaty Parties to make evidence-based decisions regarding the urgent need to reduce plastic pollution in the future. It improves our understanding of the extent of plastic pollution near to Scott Base and where it’s coming from. We can use this information to reduce plastic pollution at its source and inform our broader environmental management practices,” she says.

“Importantly, this research project also informs policy at the international level, and we have submitted a paper on the findings to the forthcoming Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting.”

https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/

REMONDIS and Werner & Mertz cooperate on plastics recycling

The current global political situation with the continuing pandemic-related breakdowns in global supply chains, the struggle to find economic solutions to climate change and, last but not least, the increasing shortage of raw materials due to war, is once again placing greater focus on the environmental service branch. Material recycling and plastics recycling in particular hold considerable potential for ensuring the supply of raw materials in the face of interrupted supply chains and planetary limitations, while at the same time protecting the climate and resources.

The targeted promotion of plastics recycling requires a bundle of measures that can simultaneously ensure economic stability and achieve the set climate and resource targets. The overall economic goal must be to make the product label “Made in Germany” a synonym for real sustainability worldwide.

To achieve this, it is necessary that the issue of resources – as is the case with renewable energies – is now given the legal status of being of “overriding public interest”.

Werner & Mertz and REMONDIS are calling on politicians to provide the right incentives to ensure that sustainable production in the sense of design for recycling and the highest possible use of recycled materials is placed in a better position on the market than non-sustainable products and packaging. To this end, it is necessary to implement political instruments with a real incentive effect. The plastic tax is a sensible approach if – unlike current practice – it is equipped with a corresponding steering effect. This means that it should only be levied on the distributors of environmentally harmful virgin material, while post-consumer recyclables must be tax-exempt. Complementary to this, a targeted use of the tax revenue would be helpful. This could be achieved by converting it into an earmarked levy that is distributed primarily to the distributors of recyclable packaging. If such a conversion should not be feasible for legal reasons, the same effect could be achieved through a corresponding fund, for which corresponding scenarios already exist at UBA and the Central Packaging Register Office.

The two companies have now joined forces under the umbrella of the Recyclat Initiative to demonstrate how plastic cycles can be fully closed using practical application examples. The common goal is to establish sustainable material cycles and to use the recyclable material from the source “yellow bag” for this purpose.

During a joint press conference at IFAT, Reinhard Schneider, managing partner of Werner & Mertz, Herwart Wilms, managing director of REMONDIS, and Dr Nabila Rabanizada, technical manager for plastics recycling at REMONDIS, explained the path taken by the raw material from the yellow bag via the further developed mechanical processing back into the production cycle and into new sustainable packaging.

The panel participants also reiterated their demand for improved political framework conditions in the EU.

Reinhard Schneider, Managing Partner of Werner & Mertz: “The recyclate initiative of Werner & Mertz has proven that high-quality recyclate can be obtained from household collection. In order to compensate for the continuing lower prices for virgin material and to trigger high-quality applications for recycled raw materials in the sense of closed loops, I am campaigning for the introduction of a plastic tax on virgin material.”

Herwart Wilms, managing director of REMONDIS, added in this context that the introduction of a polluter-pays tax on non-recycled old plastic packaging, the so-called “plastic tax”, could only have the desired steering effect if it was used in a targeted manner:

“In order to promote the recycling of plastics more strongly and make it a successful model with a worldwide exemplary character, the tax would have to be converted into a purpose-bound levy. Only in this way could sustainable production be promoted in a targeted way instead of using the tax money for other tasks.”

While the largely loss-free recycling of raw materials such as glass, metal and paper has been established practice since the beginning of the circular economy in the early 1970s, plastics have so far been considered a rather poorly recyclable material. Especially in countries where neither functioning collection systems nor sorting and recycling capacities exist, plastic waste increasingly pollutes soils and waters.

Both cooperation partners are working together to further optimise plastics recycling in Germany and Europe and to develop it into one of the key solutions for overcoming the global plastics crisis.

https://www.werner-mertz.de/

Berry’s New India Facility Starts to Take Shape for Growing Healthcare Market

Berry Global has begun construction of its new manufacturing facility and global Centre of Excellence in India.

Based in Sira, close to the company’s existing operation in Bangalore, the new factory will offer world-class capabilities to serve the healthcare and other key market sectors. It will enable Berry to extend its R&D innovation expertise and scale up production to support growing demand from customers throughout India and South Asia, offering best in class quality and service to both national and international businesses, as well as local and start-up companies.

In particular, the site will have International Sustainability and Carbon Certificate (ISCC) Plus accreditation. This enables it to sell to healthcare customers certified packaging and plastic components that contribute to a circular economy approach, based on advanced recycling and mass balance. Mass balance is an accepted chain of custody methodology that documents and tracks recycled and/or biobased content from suppliers through to final delivery to customers.

The Sira facility will consolidate Berry’s leading position in the design, development and production of patient-centred healthcare solutions, including ophthalmic, nasal pumps, inhalation, and injectable administrations. Central to this are the company’s technical and design skills in the creation of products that improve the patient experience for the administration of medicines and ensure the highest levels of functionality in areas such as ease of use, dosage control, and effective medicine protection, while also helping to meet customers’ sustainability goals.

The manufacturing facility will house the latest precision high-quality manufacturing equipment along with a dedicated R&D Centre of Excellence to support the design and development of new products and customer-specific projects.

“This latest investment demonstrates our commitment to establish strategically-placed facilities throughout the world that will enable us to bring our global expertise and localised support to customers of any size,” commented Jean-Marc Galvez, President, Consumer Packaging International (CPI) Division. “It will allow us to further strengthen existing customer partnerships and develop new business opportunities in this important region.”

Construction of the 15-acre site began with the traditional Pooja ceremony and the laying of the foundation stone. Building work is now in progress with the clean room expected to be operational by the end of this year and full completion of the factory by Spring 2023.

https://www.berryglobal.com/