Fungi Found To Degrade Plastic Without Pre-treatment And Using The Plastic As The Sole Carbon Source

My colleague Kate Appleby wrote recently (see here) about the discovery of a particular bacterium able to degrade polyethylene, which is an exciting development because polyethylene and other polymers based on carbon-carbon bonds are generally more difficult to break down then polymers with backbones comprising heteroatoms.

In a recently published report (see here), researchers from Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries and the University of Potsdam led by Professor Hans-Peter Grossart have identified 18 fungal strains isolated from lakes in north-eastern Germany, which can efficiently degrade polymers, including polyurethanes, but also polyethylene and tyre rubber (which like polyethylene is also based on a carbon-carbon backbone).