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ENSO BOTTLES, a company  based in Phoenix, Arizona, has developed a form of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) which it claims is the world’s only fully-biodegradable plastic.

Researchers altered the PET polymer chain with organic compounds and microbial nutrients. This both weakens the polymer structure and makes it more attractive to microbes, enabling it to be broken down faster.

Enso’s PET bottles are compostable and biodegradable in both aerobic and anaerobic conditions. Most biodegradable plastic bottles currently in use, such as polylactic acid (PLA) bottles, will only degrade in aerobic conditions, however, many landfill sites do not have sufficient oxygen levels for this to happen, according to the company. Its PET bottles break down into biomass (humus) and either biogas or CO₂, depending on whether conditions were anaerobic or aerobic, within five years, and Enso believes this time could be halved in second-generation bottles.

The researchers say that their PET has a similar shelf-life and properties to standard PET and can be recycled alongside it.