Student discovers plastic-eating bacteria that could solve global pollution crisis

One of the world's environmental crises could be solved with bacteria that can eat plastic and break it down into harmless byproducts. The bacterium was found by a biology student at Reed College in Oregon, Morgan Vague.

This bacterium can degrade polyethylene terephthalate (PET) – a common plastic used in clothing, bottles and food packaging. PET can be degraded over the centuries, and until then, it is harming the environment.

Morgan Vague believes that it could speed up the process and help solve a lot of the plastic pollution on our planet:

about the statistics on all plastic waste we have, basically that m & # 39, said we have a really serious problem here and we need a way to fix it. "

Then she learned about the bacterial metabolism do," so she began to see if the microbes could degrade the plastic we get "directly from the store."

Test of 300 strains of bacteria – 3 of their PET "Ate"

The first step was to hunt germs around the refineries of his Houston. She was looking for microbes capable of degrading plastic both in the soil and in the water. She took samples from college in Portland, Oregon and began testing nearly 300 strains of bacteria.

In her research, she was looking for an enzyme that could digest fats and break down plastic to turn it into food for bacteria. 19659002] Wave found 20 bacteria that produced lipase, three of them having high levels of this enzyme. The student said that she was using these three bacteria and was starting to feed them. PET:

"It looks like it breaks down into harmless byproducts that do not cause any damage to the environment, so now what it does is to break down the hydrocarbons in the plastic and then the bacteria are able to use this as food and fuel.Therefore essentially it's use to live.It is essentially turning plastic into food. "

However, there is a long trip until we start feeding the PET bacteria. Jay Mellies is a microbiologist and supervisor of Dr. Vague's thesis, stating that the next step is to get the bacteria to eat the plastic faster and to consume more different plastics:

"That do not go full solution, but I think that will be part of the solution.

Rex Austin was born and raised in Thunder Bay, Ontario, on the shores of Lake Superior. In addition to managing his own podcast, he spends his time paddling and hiking in Northern Ontario. As a journalist, Rex has published articles for Global News (Thunder Bay) and Buzz Feed and Joystiq. As a contributor to Great Lakes Ledger, Rex covers most science and health reporting. To contact Rexhere