The plastic emergency
Plastics are essential materials in our lives, but they show a problem: they are difficult to degrade. As a consequence, 79% of the plastic waste is stored in landfills or released into the environment.
Taking advantage of microbes
Some bacteria can degrade common plastics such as polyethylene (PET) or polyurethane (PU) by secreting enzymes. In addition, certain species can be modified to use these materials as food to obtain energy.
A circular solution
MIPLACE will develop a process that uses plastic waste as a feedstock for engineered microbial communities. These microbes will transform it into the raw materials used to create a sustainable plastic, Bio-PU, that can enter the cycle once thrown away.
LATEST NEWS
MIPLACE partner wins Christian Patermann Award 2022
25/05/22 - Congratulations to our partner, Dr Till Tiso (RWTH Aachen University), for being awarded the Christian Patermann Award 2022, an award that recognises exceptional achievements in the supervision of [...]
MIPLACE holds its fifth general assembly
23/05/22 - MIPLACE recently held its fifth General Assembly and, for the first time since the start of the project, partners were able to meet in person and online. It [...]
A highly efficient enzyme for breaking down plastic waste
23/05/22 - Our partners at the University of Leipzig have discovered an enzyme that is highly efficient against PET plastic waste. The enzyme (PHL7) outperformed LCC, the gold standard among [...]
MIPLACE highlighted in Nature Biotechnology
19/05/22 - Our project has been highlighted in a perspective piece at Nature Biotechnology as one of the groundbreaking initiatives dealing with PET waste by harnessing the potential of microorganisms. You [...]
Demonstrating enzymatic PET degradation
29/04/22 - MIPLACE partner, Dr Christian Sonnendecker (University of Leipzig), has created a short video that explains and demonstrates the enzymatic degradation of PET thermoform packaging and bottles. Watch the [...]
MIPLACE video reaches contest final
25/04/22 - A video created by MIPLACE partners has reached the final of the ERA CoBioTech video contest. The contest, launched in December 2021, was designed to promote effective communication [...]
PARTNERS
MIPLACE project is funded under the 2nd ERA BioTech Joint Transnational Call