{"id":243974,"date":"2026-09-12T01:36:20","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T06:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/compost-microbe-yields-enzyme-that-tackles-polyurethane-foam-and-nylon"},"modified":"2026-09-12T01:36:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T06:36:20","slug":"compost-microbe-yields-enzyme-that-tackles-polyurethane-foam-and-nylon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/compost-microbe-yields-enzyme-that-tackles-polyurethane-foam-and-nylon","title":{"rendered":"Compost microbe yields enzyme that tackles polyurethane foam and nylon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/compost-microbe-yields-enzyme-that-tackles-polyurethane-foam-and-nylon3.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Researchers from Aarhus University and the Danish Technological Institute have taken a new approach in the search for enzymes capable of breaking down some of the most difficult types of plastic to recycle. They collected millions of bacteria from a landfill in Kenya, Randers Regnskov Tropical Zoo, the guts of larvae and a compost heap near Aarhus\u2014and examined their enzymes. They found 12 that work.<\/p>\n<p>We might as well jump straight to the conclusion: The best candidate came from the compost heap.<\/p>\n<p>And the researchers are now busy improving the enzyme\u2019s ability to break down polyurethane and nylon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers from Aarhus University and the Danish Technological Institute have taken a new approach in the search for enzymes capable of breaking down some of the most difficult types of plastic to recycle. They collected millions of bacteria from a landfill in Kenya, Randers Regnskov Tropical Zoo, the guts of larvae and a compost heap [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1635],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biological","category-materials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243974\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}