This Bacteria Lives Off Plastic, And Its Fantastic

Researchers have isolated a bacterial strain that uses PET plastic, one of the main culprits of environmental
pollution, as its main source of carbon for growth.

Nurfilzah Rohaidi | March 28, 2016 | In the Lab Read more from Asian Scientist Magazine at:
https://www.asianscientist.com/2016/03/in-the-lab/bacteria-lives-plastic-its-fantastic/

AsianScientist (Mar. 28, 2016) - Life in plastic may not be fantastic if it means polluting the planet.

Researchers in Japan have discovered a bacterium, Ideonella sakaiensis 201-F6, which uses a common type
of plastic polymer as its primary source of carbon for growth. This development offers a whole new way to
recycle plastics by breaking them down into their building block chemicals.

Cheap, durable and versatile, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is used extensively in daily life in a wide
range of plastic products. However, as it is non-biodegradable, its accumulation in the environment is fast
becoming a global threat. It is harmful to the body too; studies show that chemicals such as antimony can
leach into drinking water in PET bottlesalthough at low, generally-safe levels.

Researchers, led by Dr. Kohei Oda from the Kyoto Institute of Technology and Dr. Kenji Miyamoto from
Keio University, collected 250 environmental samples from a PET bottle recycling site, including sediment,
soil, waste water and activated sludge to screen for plastic-eating microorganisms. They found and isolated I.
sakaiensis from one of the sediment samples, and discovered the mechanisms with which this strain of
bacteria breaks down plastic.

When grown, I. sakaiensis produces two enzymes that convert PET efficiently into its two monomers,
terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol, which are both environmentally benign (not harmful). Remarkably,
with the addition of nutrients every two weeks, the PET film was almost completely degraded after six
weeks at 30C.

Furthermore, by identifying the gene responsible for these PET-digesting enzymes, the researchers were then
able to produce more of them for further testing.

Currently, post-consumer plastic waste is recycled by being melted down into pellets and reformed. This
discovery, if scaled up and developed further, could lead to true recycling systems where plastics are broken
down into their chemical components, that can then be used to create new plastic products.