Microbial Population Associated With Plastic Degradation

By Natalia Arrieta Rivera

Plastics are materials created by human beings, this materials represent a great
environmental problem because of their extensive degradation time and the lack of
processes that accelerate it. One of the existing processes for degradation is called
“biodegradation”, which is done by organisms such as fungi, bacteria, among
others, that are capable of degrading natural and synthetic polymers, while at the
same time using them as substrates for their growth. For the degradation of plastic
materials there are different types, such as thermal, chemical and biodegradation.
In the case of the biodegradation of plastics, there is a greater abundance of fungi
for this process, such as Trichoderma, Fusarium, Gliocladium, Emericella and
Penicillium, the most abundant for degradation is called Geomyces pannorum.
There is an effective treatment to degrade plastics using microbial enzymes, this is
a two-step process: firstly, the enzyme adheres to the polyethylene and secondly it
catalyzes a hydrolic cleavage. Depolymerases from bacteria and fungi then take
over the degradation.
For the polymers to biodegrade, is necessary the intervention of humidity,
temperature and pressure levels, which are induced by microbes, therefore they
are highly effective at the time of carrying out this process; it is very useful since
enzymes exist in basically all microorganisms as well, varying in quantity
depending on the species. In all the degradation of plastics, regardless of the
biological organism that is used, the final product is methane, water and carbon
dioxide.
This is a process that can surely be used for the degradation of large amounts of
plastic throughout the world, making sure to control the conditions that degrade it.
It is also friendly to the environment since it does not represent any affectation.
Each site where the different types of polymers are produced in large quantities
should have an enzymatic degradation space which works as a use of these
residues that represent great environmental problems, the strongest being
contamination. Therefore, by implementing this process, the rate of biodegradation
will decrease and the industries would be carrying out a cleaner production.
The elimination of this waste plays a very important role in the world as we know it,
since most of the things we consume have polymers in some of their components.
Microbial enzymatic degradation is a clean alternative to solve this global problem,
therefore this method should be more widespread and practiced throughout the
world.