Plastic takes too long to decay and break down into its basic components. There’s too much plastic waste in our oceans and environment which has done a lot of damage to wildlife and ecosystems. But we might find our saving grace in microbes that can eat plastic.
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In new research, an international team of scientists studied how microbial communities build up on ocean-polluting plastics and contribute to their degradation – a natural biological mechanism we might be able to exploit, if we can learn to understand it better.
“Abiotic degradation precedes and stimulates biodegradation since carbonyl groups are generated on the [plastic] surface,” the researchers, led by environmental engineer Evdokia Syranidou from the Technical University of Crete in Greece, explain in their paper.
“Therefore, a wide range of organisms can settle on the weathered surface, using it as a substrate and as a carbon source.”
(Image credit: mali maeder/Pexels)
Source: neatorama