Microplastic, bacteria and fungi

Microplastic, bacteria and fungi

• Plastics in the sea, microplastics in salt, bacteria and fungi that degrade them

There are bacteria and fungi capable of digesting plastic, this could be a possible solution to the problem of microplastics that have now been found in salt and in the sea.

The plastic problem has reached the point that there is an island of garbage in the Pacific Ocean (Parker, 2018a) and although, at first instance it may seem good that the plastic thrown into the sea is fragmenting, it is actually quite the opposite. To date there are no conclusive studies and it is a mystery whether microplastic is harmful or not for humans, although as intuition suggests, Professor Boxal of the University of York says that based on his studies, "currently the tests which suggest that microplastics cause significant adverse effects are limited "and that"more quality and more global monitoring studies are urgently needed together with more realistic environmental impact studies on particle size and types of materials present in the environment " (Parker, 2018b).
One of the problems is that already 69% of marine foods are contaminated by microplastics (Crespo Garay, 2018), another problem is that microplastics also appears in 90% of table salt, this includes several types, such as sea ​​salt and rock salt (Parker, 2018b).
As part of the solution to these problems, they have found bacteria such as Ideonella sakaiensis (Corral, 2016), Pseudomonas putida (Madridejos, 2015) and the Tenebrio molitor worm (BBC World, 2015) that can degrade different types of plastics, to In addition, the fungi Aspergillus tubingensis (Portal Frutícula, 2017) and Pestalotiopsis microspora (ELO, 2011) now require that the relevant authorities start using these resources in decontamination plans.

 

Microplastics in sediment from the Rhine

Martin Wagner et al. [CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)]

 

References:

BBC Mundo. (2015). El humilde gusano que puede ser clave para acabar con la contaminación del plástico. Recuperado de https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias/2015/10/151012_ciencia_eeuu_gusanos_plasticos_degradacion_jg

Corral, M.G. (2016). "La bacteria que come plástico". En El Mundo. Recuperado de https://www.elmundo.es/ciencia/2016/03/10/56e1c141e2704e7a6a8b4629.html

Crespo Garay, C. (2018). "Un 69% de alimentos marinos está contaminado por microplásticos". En National Geographic. Recuperado de https://www.nationalgeographic.es/medio-ambiente/2018/08/un-69-de-alimentos-marinos-esta-contaminado-por-microplasticos

ELO. (2011)."Pestalotiopsis microspora: un hongo que descompone el plástico". En Viviendo en la tierra. Recuperado de https://viviendoenlatierra.com/2011/08/16/pestalotiopsis-microspora-un-hongo-que-descompone-el-plastico/

Madridejos, A. (2015). "Bacterias contra el plástico". En elPeriódico. Recuperado de https://www.elperiodico.com/es/ciencia/20150920/bacterias-contra-el-plastico-4523548

Parker, L. (2018a). "¿De qué está hecha la isla de basura del Pacífico?". En National Geographic. Recuperado de https://www.nationalgeographic.es/medio-ambiente/2018/03/de-que-esta-hecha-la-isla-de-basura-del-pacifico

Parker, L. (2018b). "Hallan microplásticos en el 90 por ciento de la sal de mesa". En National Geographic. Recuperado de https://www.nationalgeographic.es/medio-ambiente/2018/10/hallan-microplasticos-en-el-90-por-ciento-de-la-sal-de-mesa

Portal Frutícula. (2017). Aspergillus tubingensis: Hongo capaz de degradar plástico sin dejar residuos. Reciclado en la agricultura. Recuperado de https://www.portalfruticola.com/noticias/2017/09/28/aspergillus-tubingensis-hongo-capaz-de-degradar-plastico-sin-dejar-residuos-reciclado-en-la-agricultura/

Zaragoza De Vincenzo, A. (2018). "Los microplásticos: del mar a nuestros platos". En Fundación Vida Sostenible. Recuperado de http://www.vidasostenible.org/informes/los-microplasticos-del-mar-a-nuestros-platos/

How to cite this article:

Nocetti, F.A. (2018). "Microplastic, bacteria and fungi". In NabbuBlog. Retrieved from http://nabbublog.blogspot.com/2018/11/microplastic-bacteria-and-fungi.html