Earth’s tiniest bugs are officially evolving to eat plastic

The scale of the study was huge. The researchers collected soil samples from 169 locations of varying environment types in 38 countries, which led to the discovery of 18,000 new enzymes.

Ocean samples were taken from three different depths in 67 locations and yielded 18,000 new plastic-degrading enzymes – with the most enzymes present at the deepest points.

Professor Aleksej Zelezniak from the University of Technology in Sweden described this as ‘a significant demonstration of how the environment is responding to the pressures we are placing on it.’

The good news is, utilising these plastic-eating-enzymes could assist us humans with recycling processes.

Once the plastic material is degraded by microbes down to its ‘building block’ stages, new products can be fashioned from what is left – slicing current rates of virgin plastic production.

It’s true, researchers have already identified 95 different kinds of microbial enzymes that degrade plastic – the first found in Japan during 2016. But these are usually found in rubbish dumps and areas that have been plagued with high volumes of plastic pollution.

Almost 60 percent of the new enzymes found were not already classified, meaning that these molecules are breaking down plastics in ways never discovered before.

To find this process occurring in natural environments was a huge breakthrough for the team in Sweden. The next steps will involve conducting lab experiments to measure how much plastic degradation the new enzymes can achieve.

It’d be a long shot to assume that all the plastic in the world will disappear if we just leave it to the bugs. But as always, Mother Nature is showing us that when we mess up – she knows what to do next.

Bring on the plastic eating microbes.