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
ICL press release highlights new study with ‘Trojan horse’ bacteria
16/12/20 - A press release has been issued that highlights a new publication by MIPLACE partner, ICL. It describes how a bacterial strain has been engineered to out-compete other strains [...]
MIPLACE holds its second general assembly
19/11/20 - MIPLACE partners met remotely today for a very successful second general assembly. There were excellent presentations on microbial hydrolysis of PET and PU; engineering synthetic communities using plastic [...]
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. [...]
MIPLACE partner moves to Imperial College London
01/09/20 - The MIPLACE partner, previously based at the University of Surrey, has moved to the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial College London (ICL). ICL will now be in [...]
Press release highlights new technique for biotechnology
13/07/20 - The University of Surrey has issued a press release to highlight a recent publication in Nature Chemical Biology that describes a new computational technique for improving the efficiency of [...]
MIPLACE gets underway
12/05/20 – The kick-off meeting for the MIPLACE project took place remotely due to the Covid19 pandemic. However, everyone embraced this new way of meeting and there was plenty of [...]
PARTNERS
MIPLACE project is funded under the 2nd ERA BioTech Joint Transnational Call