News & Events
Darien Land Trust Presents: Bee Series Part 1
Mutant Bacterial Enzyme Can Break Down Plastic Waste in Just Hours
Researchers working for industrial development company Carbios have created a mutant bacterial enzyme that can break down plastic bottles for recycling in only a couple of hours, according to The Guardian.
The enyzme can break down PET plastic bottles into their individual chemical composites, which could later be reused to make brand new bottles.
Conventional recycled plastic that goes through a “thermomechanical” process isn’t high enough quality and is mostly used for other products such as clothing and carpets.
Carbios partnered with major industry leaders including Pepsi and L’Oreal to help develop the technology. A scientific paper describing the discovery was published in the prestigious journal Nature today.
Forgotten Compost
The “PET hydrolase” enzyme can break down 90 percent of PET polymers in just ten hours.
“This highly efficient, optimized enzyme outperforms all PET hydrolases reported so far,” reads the paper’s abstract – even in comparison to the second most promising candidate, a plastic-degrading bacterium strain called 201-F6.
The new enzyme was first spotted in a heap of composted leaves back in 2012.
“It had been completely forgotten, but it turned out to be the best,” Alain Marty at the Université de Toulouse, France and the chief science officer at Carbios, told The Guardian.
Cost Benefit
The new enyzme was also extremely cost effective to produce. In fact, according to the researchers, making new plastic from oil would have cost 25 times as much.
“It’s a real breakthrough in the recycling and manufacturing of PET,” said Saleh Jabarin, professor at The University of Toledo, Ohio and a member of Carbios’ Scientific Committee, in a statement.
The researchers are hoping to test the material’s “industrial and commercial potential” in 2021 in France, according to Marty. “Our goal is to be up and running by 2024, 2025, at large industrial scale,” deputy chief executive at Carbios Martin Stephan told The Guardian.
This article was originally published by Futurism. Read the original article.
Coronavirus Update
Due to concerns about the coronavirus in the Darien community all Darien Land Trust events are postponed until further notice. Updates will be posted as they occur. All of our walking trails are open and can be found here. Our office will have limited hours. Please stay safe and contact us if you have any questions or concerns!
Green & Glam
Join us at Nielsen’s Florist on Thursday, April 2 from 7 – 9 PM for Green & Glam! Mike Nadeau of Wholistic Land Care Consulting will be giving a presentation at this happy hour style event on why native and organic gardening matters. Appetizers and cocktails will be provided.Film Screening: “Beatrix Farrand’s American Landscapes”
Beatrix Farrand’s American Landscapes, follows award-winning public garden designer Lynden B. Miller as she sets off to explore the remarkable life and career of America’s first female landscape architect—Beatrix Farrand. Farrand was responsible for some of the most celebrated gardens in the United States and helped create a distinctive American voice in landscape architecture. Although she created gardens for the rich and powerful, including John D. Rockefeller, Jr., J.P. Morgan, and President Woodrow Wilson, she also was an early advocate for the value of public gardens and believed strongly in the power of the natural world to make people’s lives better. Through the documentary, Miller journeys to iconic Farrand gardens, engaging designers, scholars and horticulturists in a spirited dialogue about the meaning and importance of this ground-breaking early 20th-century woman. Lynden Miller’s experience as New York City’s most prominent public garden designer is woven into a wide-ranging biography of Farrand’s life and times.
For more information, please watch the film’s trailer. Attend through the Darien Library.
Film Screening: “Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf”
Starring Piet Oudolf; 75 minutes; Presented with Captions for the hearing impaired.
Director Thomas Piper filmed the garden designer Piet Oudolf over five seasons as he designed gardens from New York’s High Line and Hauser and Wirth’s prairie garden in Somerset, England to his own private garden at Hummelo in Holland.
Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf is an immersive and meditative documentary that reveals how the revolutionary landscape designer,Piet Oudolf, upends our conventional notions of nature, public space, and, ultimately, beauty itself.
For more information, please watch the film’s trailer. Register through the Darien Library.
Wednesday, April 8, 2020
7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
Darien Library Community Room
Live Seed Bank Initiative for Pollinator Health
Please join us for the Live Seed Bank Initiative for Pollinator Health, the second in the Darien Pollinator Pathway’s “Conservation and Conversation” series.
January 23, 6.30pm
Gardener’s Center and Florist
1396 Boston Post Road, Darien
Dina Brewster, of the Hickories Farm, Ridgefield, and Executive Director of CT NOFA (Northeast Organic Farming Association) will explain the work being undertaken by organic farms and pollinator pathways to create a supply of CT native plants to help restore insect and pollinator habitat and support our local food supply. Please register here to learn, network and enjoy a delicious selection of wines and appetizers!
Sponsored By: Darien Pollinator Pathway, The Gardener’s Center and Florist, Darien Land Trust, Darien Nature Center, Garden Club of Darien and Darien Library.
BBC: How trees secretly talk to each other
Trees talk and share resources right under our feet, using a fungal network nicknamed the Wood Wide Web. Some plants use the system to support their offspring, while others hijack it to sabotage their rivals. Watch the video below!
Film Screening: “The Biggest Little Farm”
Wednesday, February 12, 2020 7:00 pm – 8:45 pm Darien Library Community Room. (2018) Starring Molly Chester, John Chester; Rated PG for mild thematic elements; 91 minutes; Presented with Captions for the hearing impaired.
A documentarian and his wife attempt to establish a farm outside LA while facing wildfires, pests and predators.
For more information, please watch the film’s trailer.
Co-Sponsored with The Darien Pollinator Pathway, The Darien Land Trust, The Darien Nature Center, Garden Club of Darien & Planet New Canaan. Learn more
Before the Flood
Film Screening & Discussion: “Before the Flood”
Wednesday, November 13, 2019
7:00 pm – 8:45 pm
Darien Library, Community Room
(2016) From Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Fisher Stevens, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Ki-moon Ban (the eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations), Alejandro G. Iñárritu; Rated PG for thematic elements, some nude and suggestive art images, language and brief smoking; 96 Minutes; Presented with captions for the hearing impaired.
Actor Leonardo DiCaprio meets with scientists, activists and world leaders to discuss the dangers of climate change and possible solutions.
For more information, please click here for the film’s trailer.
Co-Sponsored with The Darien Land Trust and The Darien Nature Center.