My username is a reference to Project Wildfire from "The Andromeda Strain". In the novel, Andromeda mutates into something that can consume rubber -- the same materials used throughout the world as seals against contagion.

So, yeah, if life imitates art it could get pretty interesting.

Can't forget this classic work of speculative fiction either: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2368220.Mutant_59

In the Coburg Street control room of the London Underground system, there was a full emergency... In a dozen tunnels, trains ground down to a halt. Hordes of terrified commuters made their way anxiously along dark, musty tunnels to the lights and safety of the next station. There were minor explosions, fires, and the failure of a million wires and cables. As the dissolution of plastic proceeded and accelerated in rate, the elegant order of the system gradually turned into complete chaos...

I'm glad I'm not the only person who remembers that one.

Very much so. One of the things that makes plastics so useful is their tendency to not rot away in certain environmental conditions.

What are you talking about? So far this was just a discovery of an already existing bacterium. They identified it and studied it a little bit. I find no plans for "helping this new bacteria thrive" anywhere in the article.

Horizontal gene transfer is one of the issues brought up by researchers who discovered the plastic eating fungus Pestalotiopsis Microspora

I just finished reading Ringworld for the first time and had exactly the same thought.

We just need a bacteria that eats the plastic-eating bacteria.