Plastic – the material of our time – is omnipresent. As the production is steadily increasing, its recycling lags behind. What if enzymes like esterases could make a change? While bringing about a sustainable life style will not get around reducing plastic usage, responsible resource management also necessitates the implementation of circular economy. As for that, the European Union established the Circular Economy Package. It made plastic one of the five priorities to be targeted and calls for novel and improved recycling processes. And, (bio)-chemical recycling using esterases might just be the method to boost our resource efficiency.

Natural products play a vital role in our everyday life- say in detergents, for the food and beverage production or in medicine. For the discovery of new natural products of bacteria a methodology called functional metagenomics opens up new possibilities.