Microbes discovered that can digest plastics at low temperatures

Re:Microbes discovered that can digest plastics at low tempe... by sytelus on Wednesday May 10, 2023 @05:21AM (#35885313)

For past two decades, this news shows up every year as if some new ground breaking discovery is made. We have seen no impact of any kind so far. It seems some research group releases this to media whenever they are due to apply for funding.

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Re:Microbes discovered that can digest plastics at low tempe... by arbitrandomuser on Wednesday May 10, 2023 @06:05AM (#35885524)

It's also kind of sad , for all of human history we never had this wonder material like plastic , light , strong , moldable , cheap and very importantly resistant to chemicals , pests and microbial destruction and in the few decades that we have had it we are scrambling to look for bacteria that will digest them because we over did it .

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Re:Microbes discovered that can digest plastics at low tempe... by montalbano on Wednesday May 10, 2023 @06:55AM (#35885765)

This is newsworthy because the bacteria can function at lower temperatures (15 C) than previous bacteria discovered.

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Re:Microbes discovered that can digest plastics at low tempe... by jaclaz on Wednesday May 10, 2023 @09:41AM (#35887219)

I have no idea of the actual data, but I believe that percentage in waste plastics of those kinds (PE+PUR+PBAT+PLA) are something like:

95.0% PE

3.9% PUR

1.1% PBAT+PLA

so, even if these newly found microbes are effective and come into use they probably won't make in practice much a change, and - as you say - every year it comes out some article about research on these microbes (including some with potential for "eating" PE) but no news about them being used industrially.

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