Comment by japhib

That seems very far away. My understanding is that these PETases digest plastic VERY slowly and need human engineering efforts to digest it in any appreciable amount of time (hours to days rather than years). And human bioengineering of these enzymes is still not to the point where it's actually usable at industrial scale. The paper just says they've discovered the variants, not "oh no all animal life on earth is now dependent on microplastics" :D

> What happens to the plastic economy when plastics are no longer useful because they'll be decomposed too quickly?

We already use lots of biodegradable things for crucial applications, such as the wood used in framing houses. Just because wood can rot in a damp forest doesn't mean that the wood inside your walls will rot away just because. There are conditions where it can start rotting, and we're aware of those conditions and how to prevent them, at least enough for a house to last for decades.