The So-Called Magic of Plastic Eating Bacteria

The problem with plastic is that it works well. It’s waterproof, tough, resists chemicals and corrosion, and can be transformed to create a whole variety of things. Its low cost and ease of manufacture make it a great option for products like storage. Although it has great benefits during its usage period, the problem occurs with how we dispose of it. It takes centuries to decompose, and burning it or burying it simply adds to the problem. But now, we have a solution.

Ideonella sakaiensis is a bacterium that is capable of breaking down and consuming plastic as a sole carbon and energy source. The bacterium was originally isolated from a sediment sample taken outside of a plastic bottle recycling facility in Sakai, Japan by a team of researchers led by Kohei Oda of Kyoto Institute of Technology and Kenji Miyamoto of Keio University. The bacterium is rod-shaped and does not form spores. The discovery of Ideonella sakaiensis has potential importance for the degradation of PET plastics. Prior to its discovery, the only known degraders of PET were a small number of bacteria and fungi and no organisms were definitively known to degrade PET as a primary carbon and energy source.

Here’s how this bacteria works: Plastics are polymers. This refers to the fact that they have a long repeating chain of molecules. These long chains are incredibly durable, which leads to them being tough to break down and decompose naturally. If these long polymer chains could somehow be broken down into shorter chains, they could be recycled more easily to form new plastics. This is exactly what the newly discovered bacteria are responsible for doing; break down the molecules of the plastics into their original parts. By secreting an enzyme that ‘eats’ the chemical bonds in the chain, the molecules are broken down into smaller components, making them easier to be recycled.

The discovery of plastic-eating bacteria has great potential, not only for the treatment of PET plastics but for a wider application in the future use of all plastics. Now we finally have a solution to escape the painful evil of plastic.