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 represented at SfAM Sustainable Microbiology webinar series
04/10/21 – We are pleased to announce that our partner, Alice Banks, will be participating in the Sustainable microbiology: the future of combatting climate change webinar series, hosted by the [...]
MIPLACE partner to speak at BIEA Awards Ceremony
21/09/21 - We are delighted to announce that our partner, Alice Banks, will be giving an overview of her research into the upcycling of plastic waste as part of the [...]
MIPLACE represented at the BioTech Research and Innovation Hack 2021
20/09/21 - We are pleased to announce that Jose Jimenez, project coordinator, will be representing MIPLACE on Monday 27th September at the ‘BioTech Research and Innovation Hack 2021: Biotechnology for [...]
MIPLACE partner awarded Ig Nobel Prize
15/09/21 - Congratulations to our project partner, Manuel Porcar, and colleagues (University of Valencia) for being awarded an Ig Noble Prize for work on bacteria living on wasted chewing gums [...]
MIPLACE highlighted in Nature Biotechnology
24/05/20 - 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. [...]
MIX-UP Guest Lecture
02/09/21 – José Jimenéz, MIPLACE coordinator, has been invited to deliver a guest lecture on Friday 3rd September as part of the MIX-UP (MIXed plastics biodegradation and UPcycling using microbial [...]
PARTNERS
MIPLACE project is funded under the 2nd ERA BioTech Joint Transnational Call