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With the use of two enzymes, “Ideonella sakaiensis” is expected to degrade PET into ethylene glycol and terephthalic acid – both substances are harmless for the environment. Eventually, terephthalic acid could be use to produce new plastics, according to the scientists.
So far, the process is quite slow. It took almost 60 weeks until the bacterias had degraded the PET completely.
