‘We are just getting started’: the plastic-eating bacteria that could change the world
‘We are just getting started’: the plastic-eating bacteria that could change the world
The long read: When a microbe was found munching on a plastic bottle in a rubbish dump, it promised a recycling revolution. Now scientists are attempting to turbocharge those powers in a bid to solve our waste crisis. But will it work?
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I heard about the discovery of plastic eating bacteria years ago, and had always wondered why they weren't just spreading in nature and eating all the microplastics. This sheds a lot of light on current events in the field!
Without artificial selection, the few bacteria capable of digesting some plastics only do so when it's the only source of carbon and energy. Plastics require expressing complex enzymes and the process is not efficient.
If you have literally any other sugar available in your environment, it's better to digest that instead. So they aren't out there absolutely massacring plastic waste, unless they happen to be in an environment where this is all that's left.
I wonder if they could be bred to be unable to directly metabolize sugar, or if that's a ridiculous thought.
Easily. But then they would be outcompeted by bacteria that can.
Unless they have a sole niche they alone can occupy, like prevalent plastic, maybe.
Give them a few millenia
THROW THEM INTO THE OCEAN