PLASTIC EATING BACTERIA

 

Plastics are used because they are cheap and easily available,

but extreme use of plastic leads to pollution as it is non

biodegradable . It remains in the soil and reduce soil nutrient, It

also accumulate at the bottom of seas and oceans and results

in the death of aquatic animals.

Recent discoveries has found that there are bacteria which can

degrade plastic and they are called Plastic eating bacteria.

Ideonella sakaiensis is one such type of bacteria which could

digest single used bottles that contain PET ,as it secretes PETase

enzyme .

How does this work?

We know that plastics is make up of long polymer repeating

chains of molecules. They are very stable and hard to break. If

this long chains are broken into their building blocks plastics

can be decomposed.PETase enzyme in Ideonella sakaiensis binds to surface of PET

in the plastic and works at 30° , it helps to break the bonds

between the molecules and thus plastic can be degraded.

Thus this discovery has given us hope that we can reduce the

plastic pollution by using bacteria.

- Drishya D R