Great Article about Plastic Recycling in Britain!

The BBC has recently published a great article about recycling regulations and practices in Great Britain.

"All the plastic you can and cannot recycle", written by Wesley Stephenson, gives an interesting account of current recycling practices, their problems, and offers up an idea of what might change in the future.

 

Curious? Go read it on the BBC Webpage!

Wing-Jin Li Wins Award at EBC-VII + ISBE-2018 Joint Conference!

P4SB's very own Wing-Jin Li has received a „Best oral presentation award by a graduate Student” at the Joint conference EBC-VII + ISBE-2018 in Chania, Crete. Wing-Jin was awarded the second place for her presentation "engineering Pseudomonas putida for plastic monomer utilization".

Congratulations!

 

 

[Image: Wing-Jin Li giving her Award-winning presentation]

The Ocean Cleanup Is On Its Way!

The amazing non-profit organization "The Ocean Cleanup" has launched its first cleanup system, a passive cleaning system taking advantage of natural oceanic forces to facilitate plastic collection and removal. The very first such system, nicknamed 'Wilson', has been launched on Saturday, 08.09.2018 from San Francisco Bay.

Congratulations to all involved and all the best of luck!

 

Curious about the launch? Watch it here!

Want to know more about The Ocean Cleanup? Go visit their Website!

 

[Image Credit: The Ocean Cleanup, Erwin Zwart]

New Publication by Our Project Partners!

The jounal article "Engineering Pseudomonas putida KT2440 for efficient ethylene glycol utilization" was written by Mary Ann Franden, Lahiru N. Jayakody, Wing-Jin Li, Neil J. Wagner, Nicholas S. Cleveland, William E. Michener, Bernhard Hauer, Lars M. Blank, Nick Wierckx, Janosch Klebensberger, and Gregg T. Beckham. It was first published in Metabolic Engineering, Volume 48 in July 2018.

Congratulations to everyone involved!

Interested in learning more? Find this article on our Publications Page, or access it via its DOI!

 

Microbial enzymes for the recycling of recalcitrant petroleum-based plastics: how far are we? among 20 most downloaded articles in Microbial Biotechnology!

Microbial enzymes for the recycling of recalcitrant petroleum-based plastics: how far are we?, published in Microbial Biotechnology, was one of the journal’s top 20 most downloaded recent papers!

The article was published by Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Zimmermann and Dr. Ren Wei in 2017.

 

 

As of year-end 2017 this article has been downloaded 3476 times.

Congratulations to all involved!

Curious? Find out more about this article on our publications page!

Plastics recycling with microbes and worms is further away than people think

In this interesting and well-researched article on plastic recycling, "Plastics recycling with microbes and worms is further away than people think - Headlines about plastic-eating organisms belie tough, competitive road to development", Carmen Drahl talks about the facing the challenges, drawbacks, and effort that it takes to come to innovative and workable solutions to plastic waste problems.

It was first published by Chemical & Engineering News on June 15, 2018, and apeared in Volume 96, Issue 25.

Curious? Go read the article here!

 

[Image: http://www.altus.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/628448/altus-afb-raises-awareness-for-recycling/]

New Publication by Our Project Partners!

The scientific Journal article "Plastic Biodegradation: Challenges and Opportunities" was written by Nick Wierckx, Tanja Narancic, Christian Eberlein, Ren Wei, Oliver Drzyzga, Audrey Magnin, Hendrik Ballerstedt, Shane T. Kenny, Eric Pollet, Luc Avérous, Kevin E. O’Connor, Wolfgang Zimmermann, Hermann J. Heipieper, Auxiliadora Prieto, José Jiménez, and Lars M. Blank. It was first published online on March 26th of 2018, and can be accessed via SpringerLink, Springer International Publishing's official Webpage.

Curious? Find out more on our Publications page!

 

[Image source: https://link.springer.com/bookseries/13884]

P4SB Success Story Reported and Tweeted

"Designer bugs for creating greener Plastics" - P4SB's success Story has been shared on the EU Commission's Webpage!

Abstract of the report: "Plastics are desirable because they are very durable and resistant to degradation. Plastic waste is undesirable because of these very properties. EU-funded researchers are designing bacteria to efficiently consume plastic waste and turn it into novel destructible plastic - good for the environment and health."

Interested? Read the full article here!

[Image: related Horizon 2020 tweet]

P4SB holds 6th General Assembly on Majorca!

The 6th General Assembly of the P4SB Project took place this April in Illetas, Majorca.

Special thanks goes to the Guest Keynote Speakers and the Team of EmPowerPutida, who joined P4SB for a meeting, but also to all participants for making it an extremely fruitful and highly enjoyable Meeting for everyone involved! 

[Image: Group Photo taken at the 6th GA]

New Publications by Dr. Wei and Prof. Zimmermann!

P4SB's very own Dr. Ren Wei and Professor Wolfgang Zimmermann have published two highly interesting new articles about our project:

"Microbial enzymes for the recycling of recalcitrant petroleum‐based plastics: how far are we?" was first published in Microbial Biotechnology Volume 10, Issue 6 on 28th of March 2017. You can access it either via the P4SB Website's Publications section or via the DOI.

"Biocatalysis as a green route for recycling the recalcitrant plastic Polyethylene terephthalate" was also published in Microbial Biotechnology Volume 10, Issue 6 on 12th of April 2017. This publication, too, can be accessed both through the P4SB Website Publications section, or using this DOI.

 

Want to know more? Have a look at the abstract for "Biocatalysis as a green route for recycling the recalcitrant plastic polyethylene terephthalate" on the right!