And if the mushrooms and bacteriabacteria were our best allies in cleaning up the ocean? It has been several years since researchers began to identify microorganisms capable of consuming certain types of plastics. The latest discovery is called Parengyodontium album. It is a fungus living in the ocean environment, like many others. Except that this one seems to have developed a pronounced taste for… polyethylenepolyethylene.
A fungus that “feeds” by degrading plastic
This fungus was in fact found in the waste forming the vortexvortex of the North Pacific, also called the “plastic continent”. However, upon closer inspection, scientists discovered that this microorganism was there for a good reason: it feeds by breaking down polyethylene, which represents the type of plasticplastic most abundant today in the oceans.
In the laboratory, researchers were even able to quantify this degradation process. Parengyodontium album would thus be able to deconstruct the chains polymerspolymers polyethylene and mineralize them in the form of CO2 to one speedspeed 0.05% per day. A rather high rate of mineralization given the size of these microorganismsmicroorganisms.
UV photodegradation necessary before mushroom work
Does this mean that we will quickly be rid of these massesmasses of waste that we throw into the oceans daily? Not really. Firstly because the quantity of waste is far too enormous for these tiny mushrooms to get through in a reasonable time. The North Pacific vortex alone represents 80,000 tonnes of plastic. And there are many others.
Second, because not all plastics are affected. Only the EP, and it still needs to have been exposed to a Source UVUVthat is to say at sunsun. The results of the study published in the journal Science of the Total Environment show in fact that UV, by already partially degrading the plastic, helps the fungi to finish the work and metabolize the carbon resulting from fragmentation. Only plastics floating on the surface are therefore affected in this process.
A tremendous ability to adapt
However, it cannot be ruled out that other species of fungi (we currently know four) or bacteria (much more numerous) take care of the rest of the plastic, in particular that which has sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Ironically, with plastic pollution, humans have opened a new ecological niche, which these micro-organisms with their formidable capacities for adaptation have rushed to colonize.
