Scientists identify microbe that could help degrade polyurethane-based plastics

Re:Scientists identify microbe that could help degrade polyu... by Kalium on Friday March 27, 2020 @10:43AM (#22703192)

The article implies that this microbe was found in the wild, rather than engineered in a laboratory. The paper confirms it - https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2020.0040...

Bacteria that eats nylon was first found in the wild: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylon-eating_bacteria

With this in mind, it may be worth considering that plastic-eating bacteria that currently exist in the wild do not appear to present any significant threat of a catastrophic event. I'm sure it's just an oversight on my part, but can you help me understand why this newly identified strain would pose a threat?

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Re:Scientists identify microbe that could help degrade polyu... by londons_explore on Friday March 27, 2020 @11:08AM (#22703410)

By selectively breeding them to be more efficient at breaking down plastics faster, one might be increasing the risk of a runaway 'plastic-rot'.

I'm not concerned yet though, since current landfill sites are effectively perfect selective breeding grounds for 'plastic rot', yet so far we haven't detected any significant increase in the breakdown speeds of plastics in the environment.

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