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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.
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Wednesday May 22 2019, @05:18PM
11% of billions of tons of plastic waste still leaves billions of tons of plastic waste. This is a good development, but not a fix.
Increased CO2 by itself doesn't trigger enough plant growth to fix global warming. To grow plants need CO2, rich soil, and adequate water. Global warming will make more rain fall in some areas but less in others, make more water evaporate from land and end up in the ocean. And the increased number of hurricanes and cyclones hit so hard that rich soil gets washed away. So the increased CO2 in the atmosphere by itself won't boost plant growth enough to mean anything.