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posted by chromas on Tuesday May 21 2019, @11:11PM   Printer-friendly

ScienceMag:

Plastic makes up nearly 70% of all ocean litter, putting countless aquatic species at risk. But there is a tiny bit of hope—a teeny, tiny one to be precise: Scientists have discovered that microscopic marine microbes are eating away at the plastic, causing trash to slowly break down.

[...] Both types of plastic lost a significant amount of weight after being exposed to the natural and engineered microbes, scientists reported in April in the Journal of Hazardous Materials. The microbes further changed the chemical makeup of the material, causing the polyethylene’s weight to go down by 7% and the polystyrene’s weight to go down by 11%. These findings may offer a new strategy to help combat ocean pollution: Deploy marine microbes to eat up the trash. However, researchers still need to measure how effective these microbes would be on a global scale.

Perhaps one day Earth's inheritors will snack on Big Mac...wrappers.


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  • (Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday May 22 2019, @01:30AM

    by krishnoid (1156) on Wednesday May 22 2019, @01:30AM (#846015)

    It does help indicate that it's specific microbes, not just the ones that happen to be near the plastic in question. I propose the following instead: "These mouse-sized microbes are munching away at Plastic Waste in the Ocean."

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