What all of us know about plastic is that it takes about a 1000 years or so to decompose, if they do at all. But this was unacceptable to 16 year-old Daniel Burd from Canada, who has come up with a method to decompose plastic within just three months! This 11 grader from Waterloo, Ontario conjectured that there surely must be something there which can decompose plastic even if it took a millennium and he found that the answer is bacteria.  

 

As per information from the Waterloo record, Daniel Burd added yeast to landfill dirt and tap water and finally added ground plastic and let the whole thing stew. He found that the plastic had indeed decomposed much faster that it would have by itself. Burd found that he was able to decompose some 43 per cent of the plastic within a time period of six weeks.

 

The teenager informed that all that is required for this project is a fermenter, a growth medium and plastic and also remarked that it should be easier on an industrial scale. It was revealed that the bacteria itself generates enough energy by producing heat as they eat the plastic and that the only waste is water and a bit of carbon dioxide. Daniel Burd has been receiving a lot of applaud, cash prizes and scholarship for his accomplishment.