Daniel Burd was a Canadian High School student who in 2008 isolated two bacteria (Sphingomonas and Pseudomonas) that at the correct temperature ate almost half of a plastic sample within six weeks.
He won the first prize at the Canada Wide Science Fair and a $20,000 scholarship.
In an article in The Record (the article no longer there), Burd is quoted as saying:
The inputs are cheap, maintaining the required temperature takes little energy because microbes produce heat as they work, and the only outputs are water and tiny levels of carbon dioxide – each microbe produces only 0.01 per cent of its own infinitesimal weight in carbon dioxide.
I have googled repeatedly for Daniel Burd since then and haven’t found anything more.
Daniel Burd, where are you and what has become of your discovery?