Fungi in German lake found to feed on plastic
Fungi in German lake found to feed on plastic
Millions of tons of plastic waste ends up in the world's oceans every year, posing a major environmental problem as it takes decades to degrade but scientists in Germany have found a glimmer of hope by identifying a fungi that can 'eat' plastic. An analysis at Lake Stechlin in northeastern Germany into how microfungi grow on some plastics with no other carbon source to feed on has demonstrated some of them are capable of degrading synthetic polymers, said the team-leader. Of 18 selected fungal strains, four proved to be particularly 'hungry' which means they could efficiently utilize plastics, especially polyurethane which is used to make construction foam. Polyethylene, used in plastic bags and packaging material, was much slower to degrade and microplastics from tire abrasion was the most difficult, largely because of additives like heavy metals.
REUTERS VIDEO
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Millions of tons of plastic waste ends up in the world's oceans every year, posing a major environmental problem as it takes decades to degrade but scientists in Germany have found a glimmer of hope by identifying a fungi that can 'eat' plastic. An analysis at Lake Stechlin in northeastern Germany into how microfungi grow on some plastics with no other carbon source to feed on has demonstrated some of them are capable of degrading synthetic polymers, said the team-leader. Of 18 selected fungal strains, four proved to be particularly 'hungry' which means they could efficiently utilize plastics, especially polyurethane which is used to make construction foam. Polyethylene, used in plastic bags and packaging material, was much slower to degrade and microplastics from tire abrasion was the most difficult, largely because of additives like heavy metals.
REUTERS VIDEO
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NewsTranscript
00:00Are there any plants around here?
00:02I thought I'd go and take a look.
00:04I don't know.
00:05I'll go and have a look.
00:06I think it's a little bit...
00:07I don't know.
00:08Well, it's a nice spot, isn't it?
00:09I think so.
00:10I don't know.
00:11I don't know.
00:12I don't know.
00:13I don't know.
00:14This is a cool spot.
00:15We'll get a cardboard like this.
00:16The whole thing.
00:17It's hard to get back to the tablet.
00:18I mean, the trees were all so cool here.
00:19And then there's a camera.
00:20It's a bit of a pressure.
00:21Here you can get a picture.
00:22I don't know, I don't know.
00:23Yes, I'm curious.
00:24I don't know.
00:25I don't know.
00:56Yes, it's really beautiful.
01:04Yes, yes, that's the special thing about it.
01:26The most surprising finding of our work, which is also different from other studies,
01:52is that our fungi could exclusively grow on some of the synthetic polymers and even form biomass.
02:01This is exceptional because it clearly demonstrates that these fungi are quite capable in degrading the synthetic polymers.
02:52Yes, exactly, they can grow.
03:07That it could work.
03:10Yes, I found that by the end of three months some fungi could grow and produce normal mycelia.
03:20It's really surprising because I thought from the first moment that it takes years, as the other literature said.
03:31But for our conditions, I saw that it takes only three months and I could take some of mycelia.
03:42For the country to grow like this?
03:45Yes, first of all according to the type of fungi.
04:00No, I don't think this would be a final solution because adding more of something into an environment would cause additional problems and may destroy the entire ecosystem.
04:30First of all, I would suggest to produce less plastics and release less plastic into the environment.
04:40And secondly, you could do it in a more industrial way in reactors where you can actually manipulate the environmental conditions like temperature, nutrient content to optimize the degradation of these synthetic polymers by microorganisms.