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A recycling revolution beckons using plastic-eating bacteria found in trash decades ago
- Two decades after microbes were found eating rubbish, genetic engineering is being done to scale up their diet in an effort to revolutionise plastic recycling
15-MIN READ15-MIN
In 2001, a group of Japanese scientists made a startling discovery at a rubbish dump.
In trenches packed with dirt and waste, they found a slimy film of bacteria that had been happily chewing through plastic bottles, toys and other bric-a-brac.
As they broke down the trash, the bacteria harvested the carbon in the plastic for energy, which they used to grow, move and divide into even more plastic-hungry bacteria.
Even if not in quite the hand-to-mouth-to-stomach way we normally understand it, the bacteria was eating the plastic.
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