Life Japan, Keio University and ITO EN identify plastic-eating microbes
Tokyo - Adding a small number of microbes that can digest plastic can eliminate as much as 90 percent of single-use plastic pollution, according to researchers at P-Life Japan, Keio University, and ITO EN. The microbes absorb carbon to grow while releasing carbon naturally through organic decomposition.
(CONNECT) Around half of the approximately 400 million tons of plastic generated worldwide annually goes to landfills or pollutes the environment. To reduce that waste, circular chemical company P-Life Japan worked with Keio University researchers and bottled tea maker ITO EN to identify microorganisms that decompose conventional plastics, said a May 17 statement. The bugs can consume and expel 80 to 90 percent of plastics in soil.
“This is not fragmentation. This is not oxidation alone,” said the statement. “This is true microbial biodegradation in real-world environments – soil and marine ecosystems – confirmed through international testing standards and direct microbiological evidence, eliminating microplastics.”
To reach their conclusions, the researchers put polypropylene straws underground and measured how they degraded over time. They also identified 70 bacterial strains that could eat plastic in seawater. The process reduces carbon emissions because the bugs use the recycled plastic to grow their bodies while releasing the remaining carbon in the same way that decomposition of natural organic matter emits greenhouse gases naturally.
The materials necessary to trigger the decomposition, furthermore, are only 1 to 2 percent of the total plastic, making it easy to incorporate the process in other industrial operations like agriculture, food waste collection, forestry seedling protection, and packaging.
The process is also easy to document, preventing “greenwashing,” or making claims about sustainability that aren’t easy to prove. “The data is measurable,” said the statement. “The microbes are observable. The degradation is quantifiable. Plastic is no longer necessarily permanent.” ce/jd
