home
> News
> Could a new plastic-eating bacteria help combat this pollution scourge?
Could a new plastic-eating bacteria help combat this pollution scourge?
March 10, 2016
Could a new plastic-eating bacteria help combat this pollution scourge?
Karl Mathiesen
Thursday 10 March 2016 19.00 GMT
Nature has begun to fight back against the vast piles of filth dumped into its soils, rivers and oceans by evolving a plastic-eating bacteria – the first known to science.
In a report published in the journal Science, a team of Japanese researchers described a species of bacteria that can break the molecular bonds of one of the world’s most-used plastics - polyethylene terephthalate, also known as PET or polyester.
The Japanese research team sifted through hundreds of samples of PET pollution before finding a colony of organisms using the plastic as a food source.
Further tests found the bacteria almost completely degraded low-quality plastic within six weeks. This was voracious when compared to other biological agents; including a related bacteria, leaf compost and a fungus enzyme recently found to have an appetite for PET.
Read more at The Guardian.
category : Topics
