Carbios, the French company responsible for the breakthrough, is already collaborating with Pepsi and L'Oréal to unleash industrial market-scale production of the new substance within five years.

"We are the first company to bring this technology on the market," the deputy chief executive at Carbios, Martin Stephan, told The Guardian. "Our goal is to be up and running by 2024–2025, at large industrial scale."

Their discovery, which sources described as a major advance, joins an arsenal of solutions for plastic pollution control that have appeared over the last decade.

Just like Boyan Slat who took on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, or the bracelet folks at 4Ocean who took on the problem of ocean pollution in rivers, the scientists from the University of Toulouse are applying their breakthrough to another part of the problem—the recycling of plastic.

Plastic isn't straightforward to recycle. There are common varieties of plastic made from multiple layers of different esters, each one requiring different equipment or temperature to breakdown. And, there are a lot of plastic esters that could be recycled but aren't because the market value for the recycled material is so low it can't financially sustain the operation.

In the scientist's paper published in Nature, they detail how poly(

Utilizing an enzyme found within composted leaves, scientists are now breaking down plastic all the way into a recyclable form in a matter of hours.

Carbios, the French company responsible for the breakthrough, is already collaborating with Pepsi and L'Oréal to unleash industrial market-scale production of the new substance within five years.

"We are the first company to bring this technology on the market," the deputy chief executive at Carbios, Martin Stephan, told The Guardian. "Our goal is to be up and running by 2024–2025, at large industrial scale."

Their discovery, which sources described as a major advance, joins an arsenal of solutions for plastic pollution control that have appeared over the last decade.

Just like Boyan Slat who took on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, or the bracelet folks at 4Ocean who took on the problem of ocean pollution in rivers, the scientists from the University of Toulouse are applying their breakthrough to another part of the problem—the recycling of plastic.

Plastic isn't straightforward to recycle. There are common varieties of plastic made from multiple layers of different esters, each one requiring different equipment or temperature to breakdown. And, there are a lot of plastic esters that could be recycled but aren't because the market value for the recycled material is so low it can't financially sustain the operation.

In the scientist's paper published in Nature, they detail how poly(