nom nom nom
Could this save the planet? Some scientists think so. At least, it could help clean up our oceans a lot. You read that correctly, scientists are working on a bacteria that eats plastic. Science fiction is becoming science reality although I do not remember hearing of any movies or novels about plastic eating bacteria 😉 From the sounds of things this could be a game changer. Here is a background into how current bacteria interact with plastic:
We manufacture over 300m tonnes of plastics each year for use in everything from packaging to clothing. Their resilience is great when you want a product to last. But once discarded, plastics linger in the environment, littering streets, fields and oceans alike.
But unlike natural polymers (such as cellulose in plants) plastics aren’t generally biodegradable. Bacteria and fungi co-evolved with natural materials, all the while coming up with new biochemical methods to harness the resources from dead matter. But plastics have only been around for about 70 years. So microorganisms simply haven’t had much time to evolve the necessary biochemical tool kit to latch onto the plastic fibres, break them up into the constituent parts and then utilise the resulting chemicals as a source of energy and carbon that they need to grow.
Let’s find out how these new types of bacteria could feast on plastic on page 2
