As efforts to check and manage the growing plastic waste problem gain momentum, a team of scientists from Brunel University London is studying some microorganisms and their plastic-degrading enzymes.
- If the microorganisms can degrade plastic that cannot be recycled, this will reduce the amount of plastic that is incinerated and landfilled.
THE RESEARCHERS: The research paper ‘Enrichment of native plastic‐associated biofilm communities to enhance polyester degrading activity’, is set to publish in Environmental Microbiology.
THE RESEARCH: The scientists have identified three putative enzymes which will be investigated further to confirm if they are active against polyester. If they are, they could be added to the repertoire of known plastic-degrading enzymes, which could be engineered to have even better activity.
- Future studies could focus on carrying out the same enrichment experiment on different plastic waste samples to identify new species of bacteria that can degrade different types of plastic.
WHAT THEY SAID:
Plastic that cannot be recycled is incinerated or landfilled, but a more environmentally friendly solution could be to use microorganisms to degrade the plastic, and the breakdown products can then be used in different industries or even to make new plastic… Many of the known plastic-degrading microorganisms and enzymes have naturally low efficiency, so we need to select for organisms that have higher efficiency or engineer the enzymes to work better. We found that native plastic waste communities can be enriched for communities that have better degradation activity through our enrichment experiment. It offers a promising way to enrich for species that can thrive on plastic waste. The more bacteria we find that are capable of degrading more diverse plastic, the better options we have for industrial applications of microorganisms to degrade plastic waste.
— Dr Ronan McCarthy
Corresponding Author
Brunel University London
