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Possibilities and limitations of biotechnological plastic degradation and recycling

Nature Catalysis volume 3, pages 867–871 (2020)Cite this article

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Considerable research achievements were made to address the plastic crisis using biotechnology, but this is still limited to polyesters. This Comment aims to clarify important aspects related to myths and realities about plastic biodegradation and suggests distinct strategies for a bio-based circular plastic economy in the future.

Numerous types of plastics have been made, with a further doubling of the plastic industry size to a staggering 800 million tons per year predicted by 2040 (ref. 1). With landfills being no longer a viable option for their end-of-life treatment in a circular economy, plastic recycling aiming at material recovery is a necessity and of high importance for resource saving, thereby reducing CO2 emissions by stepwise replacement of other less eco-friendly processes, such as incineration2. While mechanical and to some extent chemical recycling, such as solvolysis of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and pyrolysis of mixed plastics containing polyolefins, are being applied in industry3, the possibilities of biotechnological plastic degradation and recycling are often overlooked.

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Fig. 1: The envisaged bio-based circular plastic economy.

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Acknowledgements

The authors R.W., T.T., K.O'C., L.M.B. and U.T.B. acknowledge funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 870294 for the project MIX-UP. The author J.B. acknowledges financial support for the Plastikbudget project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under grant no. 01UP1702A. The authors thank Dr. Elvis Genbo Xu from the University of Southern Denmark for his professional advice on microplastic pollution.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biotechnology and Enzyme Catalysis, Institute of Biochemistry, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany

    Ren Wei & Uwe T. Bornscheuer

  2. iAMB — Institute of Applied Microbiology, ABBt — Aachen Biology and Biotechnology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Till Tiso & Lars M. Blank

  3. Fraunhofer Institute UMSICHT, Oberhausen, Germany

    Jürgen Bertling

  4. BEACON – SFI Bioeconomy Research Centre, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Kevin O’Connor

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  1. Ren Wei
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  2. Till Tiso
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  4. Kevin O’Connor
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  5. Lars M. Blank
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  6. Uwe T. Bornscheuer
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Contributions

R.W., L.M.B. and U.T.B. initiated the article. R.W., T.T., J.B., K.O'C., L.M.B. and U.T.B. were involved in the conceptional design, literature analysis, writing and editing of the Comment.

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Correspondence to Lars M. Blank or Uwe T. Bornscheuer.

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Wei, R., Tiso, T., Bertling, J. et al. Possibilities and limitations of biotechnological plastic degradation and recycling. Nat Catal 3, 867–871 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41929-020-00521-w

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