Earth Week talk to focus on plastics
Apr. 18—With Earth Week underway, there are plenty of ills that ail the old mothership.
Scientists from Los Alamos National Labs have joined a coalition of research organizations looking to tackle one of the more serious of those ills: the proliferation of plastic waste.
Los Alamos biochemist Taraka Dale will discuss the issue Monday from 5:30-7 p.m. in a free, public talk via Webex. A 14-year veteran of the Labs, Dale has a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Colorado.
"There are a couple of different threads that have all converged, specifically where Los Alamos fits in," Dale said. "The lead of the project, the National Renewable Energy Lab has known that standing bacteria can degrade plastics for the past few years. What they've learned is there are certain types of proteins that serve certain functions in cells. They can bind plastic and break it down into really, really small particles."
Every year, the world produces 300 million tons of plastic waste, nearly equivalent to the weight of the entire human population. Researchers estimate that 8.3 billion tons of plastic have been produced since the 1950s and about 60% of that has ended up either in a landfill or the natural environment.
Dale, who is also the lab's team lead for an alliance of scientific organizations fighting plastic pollution, called the BOTTLE Consortium, will show how the lab's Smart Microbial Cell Technology could eventually drastically reduce the plastic pollution problem.
"The challenge is these proteins or enzymes that do this breakdown act really slowly," she said. "We've been focused on making these enzymes work faster and finding new enzymes that naturally work faster. At Los Alamos National Labs, we have a real strength in ID-ing proteins that perform better. We're a perfect fit to help this project find new and faster properties that can degrade the plastic quicker."
The talk is being held in conjunction with the Bradbury Science Museum as part of an ongoing series of community outreach talks, Science on Tap, that for years has been held monthly at area brew pubs. The COVID-19 outbreak forced the talks online and the audience is bigger than ever, said LANL spokeswoman Tricia Ware.
The project is currently targeting polyethylene terephthalate plastic, also known as PET, which most commonly is used in water and soda bottles.
"The reason we're starting with this is these bacteria, or microbes, that degrade plastic happen to degrade PET," Dale said. "That's the class of plastic that the most is known about."
Have no fear, though, these bottles will not suddenly be degrading away while using them. As a matter of fact, any fix along these lines at this point is still some time away, she said.
"The bacteria was discovered about five years ago," Dale said. "And it really has been a lot of research in trying to understand how they work and how they interact with plastic, and what makes them tick.
"That effort has been ongoing. In order to make it proactive, we have to make the whole process faster and that will take a little bit of time."
Once the process has been honed to a science, the plastics must be collected and the enzymes introduced to begin the breakdown process, she said. Likewise, the project must progress to the point that it is both cost-effective and energy-wise to the point that the use of water and power is sustainable.
"This close to Earth Day, this is a really fitting topic for this time of year," Dale said. "And then, the other thing is, I always like to have the opportunity to share the breadth of work Los Alamos is involved in. This is an area of research that some people might not associate with Los Alamos. We really do work in all types of areas at the lab."
To register for the talk, go to lanl.gov/museum and look for the Science on Tap link.
