Microbes to Be Used for Breaking Up Plastics

According to new data presented March 28 at the spring meeting of the Society for General Microbiology, held in Edinburgh, it may be that using microbes to break up plastic is the way to go. Most people tend to consider plastic objects as being disposable, but in fact they can take up to several thousand years to break up in nature. Therefore, they represent the fastest-growing human “contribution” to oceanic pollution, and is becoming a serious problem. Recent statistics have shown that plastic litters most of the ocean's surface to a great extent, and that its concentrations are rising.

This is extremely dangerous to wildlife depending on the oceans for sustenance, fish and birds included. It also possesses a considerable health hazard for human health, given that we consume that fish ourselves contaminated with various toxic chemicals. Under these circumstances, developing a method of cleaning up the waters of all this pollution is essential, said at the meeting scientist Jesse Harrison, who holds a double appointment, at the University of Sheffield, and the Center for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, both in the United Kingdom.

The expert believes that microbes naturally capable of breaking down plastics and other dangerous compounds may be the smart and elegant solution to dealing with this problem. “Plastics form a daily part of our lives and are treated as disposable by consumers. As such plastics comprise the most abundant and rapidly growing component of man-made litter entering the oceans,” states Harrison. The team making the presentation said that possible combinations of microbial populations that live on plastic wastes are very different from the ones appearing between populations living in wider environments, such as the open ocean, PhysOrg reports.

“Microbes play a key role in the sustaining of all marine life and are the most likely of all organisms to break down toxic chemicals, or even the plastics themselves. This kind of research is also helping us unravel the global environmental impacts of plastic pollution,” adds Harrison. The research team was led by University of Sheffield expert Dr. Mark Osborn. The specialists underline that additional research into how these microbes break up plastics, and what their efficiency is in various conditions, could lead to the development of alternative water treatment methods that would make the oceans a safer place for animals, and also for humans.