Plastic consists of so-called polymers, or large chains of repeating molecules and untill recently, it was thought to be resistant to all known species of bacteria due to its chemical structure. The size of molecules is far greater than the one of an individual bacterium, which makes it impossible for the microbes to metabolize plastic.
However, researchers have recently detected a bacterium that can actually consume plastic, in particular, polyethylene terephthalate or PET, one of the most popular types of plastic that is widely used in bottles, food packaging and clothing. This new species of bacteria was called Ideonella sakaiensis, after the Japanese city of Sakai where it was found.
A group of Japanese researchers looked through numerous debris fields with PET pollution and eventually discovered a colony of bacteria growing on plastic waste and using it as a food source.
“Plastic-eating bacteria could solve the problem of growing pollution” by epSos.de is licensed under CC BY 2.0
“It’s the most unique thing. This bacterium can degrade PET and then make their body from PET,” Shosuke Yoshida, a microbiologist at Kyoto University and lead author of the study, told NPR.
What makes this bacteria different from other bacteria is that it has two enzymes capable of breaking the molecular bonds in the plastic polymer so that the bacterium can then metabolize the pieces and convert them into water and carbon dioxide. Although it sound like a perfect sollution to fight against plastic waste, it is not that easy.
The problem is that Ideonella sakaiensis eats too slowly
For the purpose of the study, which was published in the journal Science, Yoshida and his team conducted an experiment in which the isolated bacterium almost completely degraded a plastic film in around six weeks.
“Plastic bottles floating on the river” by Emilian Robert Vicol is licensed under CC BY 2.0
It seems that nature itself is working on finding a way to neutralize the pollution caused by human activity and is evolving microorganisms capable of that. Scientists believe that such rapid evolution takes place thanks to the incredible ability of microbes to adapt to the surrounding conditions. As Enzo Palombo, a professor of microbiology at Swinburne University, told The Guardian, “If you put a bacteria in a situation where they’ve only got one food source to consume, over time they will adapt to do that.”
Luckily, Ideonella sakaiensis is not the first living organism that was found to feed with plastic. In 2014, a group of researchers detected a plastic-eating species of fungi in the rainforest of Ecuador.
Whether scientists will ever use Ideonella sakaiensis to neutralize the existing plastic pollution or not, it is obvious that Mother Nature is actually starting to fight back against all this harm we have done and are still doing to it.
H/T to themindunleashed
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