How Much Plastic Waste Can Be Eaten By Bacteria?

The world remains filled with environmental, health, and agricultural challenges that threaten the planet and its inhabitants. Challenges such as crop yields and carbon sequestration, the use of the sun, fluoride in drinking water, and others continue to posed challenges and hurdles.

Another major issue is plastic waste. Where is it all? How do we get rid of it? Studies have revealed the alarming amount of plastic that humans are consuming annually, particularly those in the United States. Plastic waste exists en masse in our beautiful oceans, and this is on top of the fact that as humans we really have no idea what is actually in our oceans.

In 2016 researchers in Japan discovered that they found a species of a microbe that eats PET, the main polymer in the plastic we use all the time. So yes, in effect this is a bacteria that will eat plastic which in theory could potentially solve a lot of problems related to plastic waste. More recently, Indian researches discovered more to enhance this theory and process in the wetlands of Greater Noida.

This is encouraging. Now, building on this would be very beneficial as would solving the problem of dangerous black plastics.