Sopraloop

Turning plastic waste into insulation

Our project partner SOPREMA from France started an innovation for complex PET this year. Check out their solution to turn plastic waste into insulation for Buildings HERE!

SOPREMA creates and develops reliable, innovative and efficient products in response to the demands of the marketplace which are evermore turned towards sustainability. At the beginning of June 2019, SOPREMA opened the SOPRALOOP recycling plant in Strasbourg. In a unique process worldwide, complex PET plastic packaging is recycled so that it can be used again in industrial production.

Get more information about the project: http://www.solarimpulse.com

Save the Ocean Week

Plastic Pollution in the World's Oceans

The German TV channel Pro 7 will once again include a "Green Seven" theme week. This time it is about the plastic flood in the World's Oceans. "Save the Ocean Week" runs from 14 to 20 Oktober 2019.

The cooperation between RWTH Aachen University together with Pacific Garbage Screening will be presented there!

For more Information, please visit HERE.

Laboratory evolution reveals the metabolic and regulatory basis of ethylene glycol metabolism by Pseudomonas putida KT2440

New Article published in Environmental Microbiology, 2019

The article "Laboratory evolution reveals the metabolic and regulatory basis of ethylene glycol metabolism by Pseudomonas putida KT2440" has been published by Wing-jin Li et al. in the journal of Environmental Microbiology. Environmental Microbiology is devoted to the advancement of our understanding of microbial interactions and microbial processes in the environment, and this article adresses environmental pollution with plastics.

Link to the puplication!

 

Innovative solutions against plastics in our ocean

The Result Packs of the European Commission reported about P4SB recently

P4SB has been in the spotlight of GreenNews Techno N° 290 (in French)!

Oceans are a reservoir for exponentially increasing amounts of plastic waste

Significant plastic accumulation on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Australia

Lavers et al reports more than 200 tonnes of plastic on the beaches of an uninhabited island: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-43375-4#Fig3. Again, as in many cases, the very well floatable bottles, tooth brushes and the infamous flipsflops are among the most often mentioned plastic items. On the photos fishery equipment is visible, as so often encountered.

Interview with the head of the RWTH Institute for applied microbiology (iAMB)

The positive side-effect of bacteria

Prof. Lars Blank, coordinator of the EU-project P4SB, gave a talk about Pseudomonas putida bacteria and their capability to produce microplastic from man-made plastics at the RWTH kids university - the children loved to hear his phantastic story about "Mirko". The full article in German can be found here.

New Study Paves Path for Synthesizing Enzymes for PET Recycling

Lot of Plastic Produced, Too Little Recycled

A research team from the University of Greifswald and Helmholtz-Zentrum-Berlin (HZB) has solved the molecular structure of the important enzyme MHETase at BESSY II. MHETase was discovered in bacteria and together with a second enzyme - PETase - is able to break down the widely used plastic PET into its basic building blocks. This 3D structure already allowed the researchers to produce a MHETase variant with optimized activity in order to use it, together with PETase, for a sustainable recycling of PET. The results have been published in the research journal Nature Communications. Click here for details!

Plastic Use and Coca-Cola

For the first time, Coca-Cola has revealed it used three million tonnes of plastic packaging in one year.

There is a very interesting new article about the plastic use of the Coca-Cola company. It was published on the BBC News Website on 14th of March 2019. Curious? Go read it here!

Drugstore Companies Rossmann and DM introduce recycling label on their products!

Two of Germany's biggest drustore companies, Rossmann and DM, are now introducing a recycling Label for their products! Curious? Learn more here!

"Apeel Sciences"

Take a look at this great new effort to preserve food! "Apeel Sciences" has made it their goal to "use food to
preserve food".

A short excerpt from their mission statement:

"We look to nature to help the global food system — and all who depend on it — improve quality, reduce waste and ensure an abundant future for our planet."

Curious? Learn more about them on their website!