The article in the url below is both hopeful and depressing at the same time. Hopeful because it suggests nature can adapt to our harmful behavior, but depressing because this reported mutation occurred in response to the damage we have already inflicted on the natural environment:
"Microbes in oceans and soils across the globe are evolving to eat plastic, according to a study. The research scanned more than 200m genes found in DNA samples taken from the environment and found 30,000 different enzymes that could degrade 10 different types of plastic."
I read the article's headline and my immediate reaction was, "oh, great, some hope" and then my second thought was, "oh, crap, we're such idiots." Nevertheless, the ability of nature to adapt is fascinating. The research is able to isolate the effects, which vary according to the location, because the evolution of the bacteria is specific to the nature of the local pollution:
"The study is the first large-scale global assessment of the plastic-degrading potential of bacteria and found that one in four of the organisms analysed carried a suitable enzyme. The researchers found that the number and type of enzymes they discovered matched the amount and type of plastic pollution in different locations."
Irrespective, we are neck-deep in plastic and need all the help we can get to reverse the damage that has been done:
"Millions of tonnes of plastic are dumped in the environment every year, and the pollution now pervades the planet, from the summit of Mount Everest to the deepest oceans. … But many plastics are currently hard to degrade and recycle. Using enzymes to rapidly break down plastics into their building blocks would enable new products to be made from old ones, cutting the need for virgin plastic production. The new research provides many new enzymes to be investigated and adapted for industrial use."
As the researchers note, the evolution is an indicator both of the scale of the problem, and the length of time we have been causing it:
"The explosion of plastic production in the past 70 years, from 2m tonnes to 380m tonnes a year, had given microbes time to evolve to deal with plastic, the researchers said."
And, of course, given the opportunity and knowledge that nature has given us, we are tweaking:
"The first bug that eats plastic was discovered in a Japanese waste dump in 2016. Scientists then tweaked it in 2018 to try to learn more about how it evolved, but inadvertently created an enzyme that was even better at breaking down plastic bottles. Further tweaks in 2020 increased the speed of degradation sixfold. Another mutant enzyme was created in 2020 by the company Carbios that breaks down plastic bottles for recycling in hours. German scientists have also discovered a bacterium that feeds on the toxic plastic polyurethane, which is usually dumped in landfills."
Take care
David
David Chandler
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Bugs across globe are evolving to eat plastic, study finds
By Damian Carrington
December 14, 2021
The Guardian
