Researchers develop fast-degrading marine plastic | NHK WORLD-JAPAN News - NHKニュース

Researchers at the University of Tokyo and other institutions have developed a plastic embedded with enzymes that give it an accelerated marine degradation rate, which may help reduce garbage accumulation on the seabed.

The group explained that they developed the material with the aim of addressing slow-decaying plastic waste that winds up in the sea and continues to increase on the ocean floor.

They say the new material is a type of biodegradable plastic, characterized by pre-mixed enzymes that break it down.

They explain that the plastic begins to degrade once the surface comes into contact with water. They say they confirmed in an experiment that the plastic had completely decomposed after being left for five months on the seabed at a depth of more than 750 meters off the coast of Kanagawa, near Tokyo.

The researchers also found that the new plastic degrades more than 30 times faster than in a similar experiment using biodegradable plastic that does not contain degrading enzymes.

The group says the new material can quickly decompose without depending on microorganisms of certain types on the ocean floor, because of its pre-mixed enzymes.

Professor Iwata Tadahisa at the University of Tokyo Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, said that as the plastic can be decomposed by enzymes in a harsh environment on the seabed, the findings can also be used in other environments such as mountains and rivers.

He says he hopes to put the findings into practical use and help alleviate the problem.