Recently discovered microbes that can break down plastic? Sounds too good to be true. But plastics also have the element carbon that most all microbes deal with on a normal basis. We should approach newly-discovered microbes with caution, even though they already exist. Here is just one article about it: https://theconversation.com/how-microbes-could-help-solve-the-worlds-plastic-pollution-crisis-262583
by Upper_Status_6338
2 Comments
I always approach these things with caution, and I think we should be very careful about leveraging these microbes without extensive study. My first concern is how completely are they consuming and digesting plastic? Are we just creating more microplastics? And what are the byproducts of digesting plastics? They must produce some kind of waste, is that any better for the environment? The second concern is how do we control this to only break down plastics that we want to break down? Yes, we overproduce and overuse plastics, but there are many uses of plastic that are absolutely vital. Look how essential plastics are for maintaining sterility in hospitals, for example. We need to establish some sort of control protocol to limit the ability for these microbes to live where we don’t want them, particularly if they evolve to become more efficient and more aggressive as we start leveraging them.
IMHO building compost piles is like building a bar in a college town. The bar has beer, cider, wine, vodka, jagermeister, water, darts, pool tables, pretty people. If you’re a student, even if you don’t drink, you still will find your way there because it’s a happy place for students.
A compost piles is a happy place for microbes. If there’s water and microbe food, they’ll come to the compost pile. Even the specialized microbes will show up if there’s enough of their particular food source, and they might even evolve to diversify their diet to something else they find in the pile.
So I’m not surprised that microbes have been found to metabolize plastic. To borrow a phrase, there’s nothing new under the sun, and Mother Nature has more tricks up her sleeves.