alt Hacker NewsUsually these bioengineered yeasts need pretty specific growth conditions in order to eat in this case ethylene glycol, not raw finished plastic. In this case they say "plastic-derived substrates" which means they're pre-processing the waste plastic.
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>Usually these bioengineered yeasts need pretty specific growth conditions in order to eat
Until, say, they mutate independently. Now, I have no idea how likely that is, but I think the fear is not baseless. There's a fun SF book, "Directive 51", which explores this a bit. Not a bad book to cuddle up with.
Of course, the lysine contingency.
> bioengineered yeasts need pretty specific growth conditions
In a natural environment this will not hold. Organisms are unstable; they change all the time, simpler ones even more so. Mutants with a faster growth rate will, up to a certain maximum, take over from slower growing or growth-deficient mutants. There isn't really a compelling growth advantage for plastic-degrading organisms, which is one reason why plastic stays so long in the environment.
All pre-processing steps further add to the cost, so we will year after year hear about it - and then wonder why nothing happens and plastics keep compounding in the ocean. And this is not new either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_v._Chakrabarty
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Good thing microorganisms are famous for their slow rate of change in dynamic environments…