Making Plastic Rot

Americans discard more than 3,000,000 tons of plastic every year. Most of it ends up in local dumps, creating mountains of nonrotting, nonrusting, immortal trash. Three years ago, a team of scientists led by a University of Toronto chemist designed a plastic that would self-destruct in direct sunlight; a company in Delaware offers a kind of cellulose that dissolves in water; another in Idaho is marketing a process that makes styrene products break down into photodegradable substances. But such products have been handicapped by high costs or limited applicability.

Now, British Chemist Gerry Griffin, of Brunei University near London, claims that he has discovered a simple additive that will cause any plastic to decompose in the dump. Griffin will announce the discovery of what he calls "Additive X" this month at the semiannual meeting of the American Chemical Society in Chicago. He says that the substance, mixed with plastic during the manufacturing process, is easily attacked and broken down by enzymes normally found in topsoil. When these additive particles are gone, the once glassy and impermeable plastic is left as a porous, sponge-like substance that naturally decomposes in the earth.

A London paper and printing firm that financed Griffin's research is now negotiating licensing agreements in Britain, the U.S. and Japan.

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