VATIS UPDATE Article

A group of researchers comprising Assistant Professor Shosuke Yoshida, Associate Professor Kenji Miyamoto, Professor Emeritus Kohei Oda, and Professor Emeritus Yoshiharu Kimura, of Keio University Faculty of Science and Technology, Japan, conducted a collaborative research project with Teijin Limited, Japan, and ADEKA Corporation, Japan, have discovered a bacterium that degrades and assimilates polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and were able to identify the decomposition mechanism.

PET is used extensively throughout the world, commonly in clothing and plastic bottles. MostPET products simply end up in landfills, never entering a recycling process, and it was generally believed that PET is resistant to microbial degradation. However, the present research overturns certain aspects of this commonly accepted theory, and the findings are expected to contribute greatly to the development of bio-recycling technology of PET waste products. The results have been published in the American science journal Science.