Finding, cultivating, and bioengineering organisms that can digest plastic not only aids in the removal of pollution, but is now also big business. Several microorganisms that can do this have already been found, but when their enzymes that make this possible are applied at an industrial scale, they typically only work at temperatures above 30°C. The heating required means that industrial applications remain costly to date, and aren't carbon-neutral. But there is a possible solution to this problem: finding specialist cold-adapted microbes whose enzymes work at lower temperatures.
[...] "Here we show that novel microbial taxa obtained from the 'plastisphere' of alpine and arctic soils were able to break down biodegradable plastics at 15°C," said first author Dr Joel Rüthi, currently a guest scientist at WSL. "These organisms could help to reduce the costs and environmental burden of an enzymatic recycling process for plastic."
[...] None of the strains were able to digest PE [non-biodegradable polyethylene], even after 126 days of incubation on these plastics. But 19 (56%) of strains, including 11 fungi and eight bacteria, were able to digest PUR [biodegradable polyester-polyurethane] at 15°C, while 14 fungi and three bacteria were able to digest the plastic mixtures of PBAT [biodegradable polybutylene adipate terephthalate] and PLA [biodegradable polylactic acid]. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and a fluorescence-based assay confirmed that these strains were able to chop up the PBAT and PLA polymers into smaller molecules.
"It was very surprising to us that we found that a large fraction of the tested strains was able to degrade at least one of the tested plastics," said Rüthi.
The best performers were two uncharacterized fungal species in the genera Neodevriesia and Lachnellula: these were able to digest all of the tested plastics except PE. The results also showed that the ability to digest plastic depended on the culture medium for most strains, with each strain reacting differently to each of four media tested.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18, @01:47AM (1 child)
But not sure if the turtles etc would survive long enough to evolve to digest plastic bags ether directly or with the help of microbes. So still no excuse to litter...
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday May 18, @03:10AM
Evolution evolved humanity to help speed itself up.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DadaDoofy on Thursday May 18, @08:35PM (3 children)
We've been told lies about plastics persisting in land fills for hundreds, or even thousand of years. We've also been told lies about oil spills permanently destroying aquatic ecosystems. The inconvenient truth is, in both cases, organisms that already exist naturally have been proven to fix these problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18, @08:54PM
What about "Forever Chemicals"?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday May 19, @02:12AM (1 child)
I'm reminded of a scene in the film version of The Andromeda Strain, where everything plastic in a jet instantly disintegrates.
This isn't something you want to get too carried away with. Imagine endemic plastic eaters. Goodbye modern medicine.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22, @01:09AM
Microbes and small creatures won't destroy wood/plastic instantly.
Termite infestations could start damaging plastics too.
And could get "interesting" once larger animals like goats and deer that can eat wood start eating plastic too...