Plastic-Eating Microbes Could Help Tackle Our Environment...

What’s Happening

So basically Learn more about the microbes that consume plastic and how they could one day help clean up our environment.

Each year, the world produces upward of 450 million metric tons of plastic waste — far more than the combined weight of every person on Earth, according to Our World in Data. A 2023 study in Yonsei Medical Journal found that this pollution may be a growing hazard to humans and most other living creatures, as they can’t digest the countless microplastics embedded in their food. (yes, really)

But, unappetizing as these contaminants may seem to us, they present a welcome new buffet for certain organisms.

The Details

In 2001, researchers in Japan were digging through a garbage dump when they found out something remarkable: some of the discarded plastic was covered with a slimy coat of bacteria. Endlessly resourceful, the microbes had found a way to break the chemical bonds — and there carbon — in polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is used in bottles, single-use packaging, and polyester clothing.

In other words, they were eating plastic. The researchers finally published their findings in Science in 2016, naming the species Ideonella sakaiensis .

Why This Matters

Over the decade, plastic-digesting bacteria have cropped up all around the world, in compost heaps, beach litter, and even hospitals, according to a report in Cell . In the lab, meanwhile, scientists are working to understand how we can use their innate abilities to clean up the land-filling, ocean-choking, ever-expanding mess we’ve made. : Viruses on Plastic Pollution May Be Fueling Antibiotic Resistance How Do Bacteria Break Down Plastic?

Scientists and researchers are watching this development closely.

The Bottom Line

When it comes to evolution, “things rarely start from a clean slate,” Ronan McCarthy, a geneticist who studies bacteria at Brunel University, told Discover. Instead, their plastic-degrading prowess is probably built on preexisting enzymes that break down natural materials that resemble plastics, such as cutin, a waxy substance produced by plants.

What do you think about all this?