Plastic-eating enzyme holds promise in fighting pollution

(Refiles this April 16 story to fix affiliation in 10th paragraph.) (Reuters) - Scientists in Britain and the United States say they have engineered a plastic-eating enzyme that could in future help in the fight against pollution. The enzyme is able to digest polyethylene terephthalate, or PET - a form of plastic patented in the 1940s and now used in millions of tonnes of plastic bottles. Researchers from Britain's University of Portsmouth and the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory made the discovery while examining the structure of a natural enzyme thought to have evolved in a waste recycling center in Japan.