A group of Yale students on a school trip in the Amazon recently discovered a species of fungus that gets its sustenance from plastic in airless landfills, the NZ Herald reported.

The students, taking part in Yale’s annual Rainforest Expedition and Laboratory, went with professor Scott Strobel of the molecular biochemistry lab into Ecuador’s wilderness.  The goal of the mission was to enable “students to experience the scientific inquiry process in a comprehensive and creative way.”

Plastic waste, a substance notoriously well known for its ability to more than likely last indefinitely, poses a huge threat to the environment.  While landfills offer a good way to dispose of the waste in the short term, its long-term effects are strongly felt by Mother Nature.

Countless animals each year, especially marine life such as turtles, which commonly mistake plastic bags for jellyfish, perish as a result of the waste.  The problem of plastic waste has escalated so quickly and extremely that there is a giant vortex of plastic waste in the Pacific Ocean called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch that is estimated to be roughly twice the size of Hawaii.

Samples of the fungi, named Pestoltiopsis microspora, were brought back from the trip by the group and could offer a solution to the plastic waste problem plaguing the environment today.

The fungi breaks down and digests polyurethane, a common plastic present in many various products, such as shoes, garden hoses, car seats, and other non-degenerating products. Interestingly, polyurethane by itself is enough to sustain the fungi, as it can exist and actually thrive in an anaerobic (oxygen-free) environment, which perfectly fits the conditions found in the bottom of a landfill.

Students recorded the amazing behavior of the microbe and were able to isolate the enzymes that allow the organism to turn plastic into a source of nourishment. The findings were published this past year in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology with the conclusion that the peculiar microbe is “a promising source of biodiversity from which to screen for metabolic properties useful for biomediation.”

The Amazon holds more species of flora and fauna within its borders than virtually anywhere else on the planet. The discovery raises the possibility of other unknown organisms existing there that may also perform similarly amazing feats and help better the environment.

While it is unclear if the microbe will be able to help break down plastic in the ocean, the find raises the hopeful idea that a plastic-free environment will one day be possible.

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The Residential Recycling Conference will convene for its third annual gathering at the Gaylord Texan on March 28-30, 2012. The nation’s premier recycling conference features municipal recycling leaders, executives from privately owned recycling companies and leaders from non-profit groups and associations.

The two-and-a-half-day event includes more than 25 speakers, an adjoining exhibit floor featuring the latest recycling technology and equipment, networking receptions, classes to earn professional education credits and a tour of a nearby recycling facility. Waste & Recycling News and Republic Services Inc. are the co-organizers of the Residential Recycling Conference.

“I love the RRC because it is singularly focused on residential recycling. It’s a business that deserves special emphasis, given its complexity and reach into our daily lives,” said Brennan Lafferty, publisher of Waste & Recycling News. “Our attendees make great connections with their peers, and exhibitors consistently tell us that they are now doing business with someone they met at the RRC.”

The general session is a diverse mix of panel discussions and singular presentations. Highlights include a panel on the challenges of recycling in apartments and other multi-family locations, a session on educating community residents using schools and social media, and a discussion on how recycling managers can maximize the prices they receive for their collected material..

Speakers include experts from Coca-Cola Co., Sims Municipal Recycling, ERI Electronics Recyclers, ReCommunity and several municipalities, including the city of San Antonio, Texas.

“There is always something new and exciting about this event,” Conference Chairman Kurt Blascoe said. “I look forward to hearing from the team of all-star speakers and to seeing the latest in technology from our valued vendors.

Through recycling’s evolution, we have begun to see a paradigm shift from doing it for economic reasons only to doing it because it’s the right thing to do,” said Blascoe, who serves as director of marketing materials for Republic Services.

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Recycling is an easy way for all of us to help protect the environment and conserve natural resources. While recycling plastic, glass, and paper has been widely adopted in the United States, many people don’t recognize the importance of properly recycling their electronic waste (e-waste) or do not know what to do with unwanted electronics.

E-waste is the fastest growing segment of the municipal waste stream in the U.S. with over three million tons of electronics generated each year of which only 14% is recovered for recycling.

The rest typically ends up in landfills. Electronics should not be disposed of in one’s household trash because most contain heavy metals such as lead (an average older computer monitor, for example, may contain 4-7 lbs. of lead) batteries, mercury, and cadmium.

In observation of America Recycles Day on November 15, 2011, ECOvanta, a state-of-the-art recycling facility that properly recycles electronic waste such as computers, monitors, mobile phones, printers, and televisions, offers the following tips for handling consumer e-waste:

REUSE & RECYCLE

• First, figure out what you want to be done with the equipment. If you want to provide a community service and don’t have any data security needs, donating may be the way to go. If your equipment is not in working order or you want it destroyed for security reasons, you will want to have it demanufactured and recycled.

• Donating used (but still operating) electronics for reuse extends the life of valuable products before they need to be properly disposed. Before you donate, make sure the equipment works and someone can use it. Many organizations that accept donations may be limited in what they can repair/upgrade and put back into service, so ask first.

• Over 1,000 or more counties and municipalities across the U.S. offer computer and electronics collection programs as part of household hazardous waste collections, special events, or other arrangements. Depending on where you live and the amount of equipment you have, contact your county or municipality or go on their website to see when the next electronics recycling event will take place.

• State Departments of Environmental Protection websites are also a good resource to see who is a licensed electronics recycler within your state and where they are located.

• Some large box stores (online and off-line) also accept electronics for recycling whether you purchased the item from them or not. Some even offer credit rewards!

• Whether you decide to donate used electronics for reuse or turn components in for recycling, always remember to completely erase data from any electronics with a hard drive such as cell phones, smart phones, computers, and printers.

Recycling electronics helps reduce the environmental impact that would be generated while manufacturing a new product and the need to extract valuable and limited virgin resources from the earth. It also reduces the energy used in new product manufacturing. According to the U.S. EPA, recycling one million laptops saves the energy equivalent to the electricity used by 3,657 U.S. homes in a year

ECOvanta safely manages end-of-life electronics using a combination of manual disassembly and an automated shredding system to separate materials into commodities for recycling. The facility also offers secure destruction services for customers who require assured and certified destruction of their electronic equipment.

For more information on how to responsibly handle e-waste, please visit ecovanta.com.

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