With US plastic recycling at less than 9% - a percentage that has remained consistent for decades - and the fact that current recycling processes not only are costly, yield a less than optimum quality of product but also often resulting in large volumes of greenhouse gases - the Birch Biosciences approach to the issue does get one's attention: engineering an enzyme-mediated process to recycle plastic. The firm's high performance enzymes are described as functioning as molecular scissors'' at low temperatures to break down plastic polymers into monomer building blocks, wthat can be re-polymerized into high quality recycled plastic products. The firm's recycling technology is indicated as * Reducing carbon emissions associated with plastic recycling by > 70%. * while generating recycled plastic of equivalent quality to new plastic. As described, firm's recycling process enables a circular plastic economy where plastic products are continuously recycled into same type of plastic products versus new material made from/with oil or gas. With enzymes as molecular scissors the centerpiece of the firm's recycling technology, principals of the firm discover/develop high performance enzymes using iterative machine learning and quantitative high-throughput screening of novel protein designs. Firm is currently focused on engineering enzymes for (1) PET plastics: beverage bottles, polyester clothing and polyurethane plastics (foam for furniture, bedding, insulation).
