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 partners meet for sixth general assembly
28/11/22 - On Friday 25th November, MIPLACE partners met in Valencia, Spain and online for the 6th General Assembly which was hosted by Dr Manuel Porcar from the University of [...]
New article on the enzymatic degradation of PET
15/11/22 - Our partners from the University of Leipzig and their colleagues from the Helmholtz Centre Dresden-Rossendorf have recently published an article on the enzymatic degradation of PET. The article, [...]
MIPLACE represented at Synthetic Biology UK 2022
07/11/22 - MIPLACE partner, Dr Alice Banks, gave a fascinating talk today on microbial degradation and upcycling of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) to value-added products at the Synthetic Biology UK 2022 [...]
New publications on enzymatic plastic degradation
18/10/22 - Our partners from the University of Leipzig have recently published articles on enzymatic plastic degradation. The article 'PET recycling - with enzymes against the plastic crisis' by Dr [...]
Good microbes and bio-based plastics
10/10/22 - Our partners from RWTH Aachen University and their colleagues have contributed to a new publication, 'Good Microbes in Medicine, Food Production, Biotechnology, Bioremediation and Agriculture'. A link to [...]
Talking with Open Age
30/09/22 - MIPLACE partners, Jose Jimenez, Alice Banks and Joanne Benton from Imperial College London, recently gave a talk on the work of MIPLACE and plastic-related matters to members of [...]
PARTNERS
MIPLACE project is funded under the 2nd ERA BioTech Joint Transnational Call