MIT researchers uncovered the roles of bacterial species from the environment as they consume biodegradable plastic.
MIT researchers uncovered the roles of bacterial species from the environment as they consume biodegradable plastic.
Biodegradable plastics could help alleviate the plastic waste crisis that is polluting the environment and harming our health. But how long plastics take to degrade and how environmental bacteria work together to break them down is still largely unknown.
Understanding how plastics are broken down by microbes could help scientists create more sustainable materials and even new microbial recycling systems that convert plastic waste into useful materials.
Now MIT researchers have taken an important first step toward understanding how bacteria work together to break down plastic. In a new paper, the researchers uncovered the role of individual ocean bacteria in the breakdown of a widely used biodegradable plastic. They also showed the complementary processes microbes use to fully consume the plastic, with one microbe cleaving the plastic into its component chemicals and others consuming each chemical.
Read More: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
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