Bacteria really eat plastic: Laboratory experiment shows that bacteria really eat and digest plastic
www.sciencedaily.com
The bacterium Rhodococcus ruber eats and actually digests plastic.
  • chaogomu
    7•11 months ago

    The thing that never gets mentioned here is that most of the time, you have to starve the bacteria to eat plastic. It can eat plastic, but it often prefers easier to digest stuff.

  • HousePantherEnglish
    5•11 months ago

    That’s really interesting but I am curious what waste products the bacteria excrete from the metabolic process of digestion. I hope the waste products from the bacteria are actually useful.

    EDIT: Okay, so CO2 is produced by the bacteria. I also read more carefully and the study suggests that we produce more refuse plastic than the bacteria can consume.

    • Bernie EcclestonedOPEnglish
      4•11 months ago

      the study suggests that we produce more refuse plastic than the bacteria can consume.

      That sounds like a ratio problem

      Goudriaan already did some pilot experiments with real sea water and some sediment that she had collected from the Wadden Sea floor. “The first results of these experiments hints at plastic being degraded, even in nature,” she says. “A new PhD student will have to continue that work. Ultimately, of course, you hope to calculate how much plastic in the oceans really is degraded by bacteria. But much better than cleaning up, is prevention. And only we humans can do that,” Goudriaan says.

      So less plastic and more plastic eating bacteria, maybe it could be genetically engineered to produced biofuel.

      We need net zero plastic as well as co2. Any tech that can recycle plastic pollution and offset a fossil fuel emission should get turbo tax credits.