A team of seven scientists from Greece, Switzerland, China, Italy and the United Arab Emirates have developed a living being that feeds on carbon found in marine plastic, which represents almost 70% of all marine litter.
The team used two samples of microbes: some were natural, which are already found in the oceans; others were engineered in a lab. The latter type can survive by feeding solely on the carbon present in the plastic pieces. The scientists analyzed the changes in the materials over a period of 5 months. Both types of plastic lost significant amounts of weight after being exposed to both the natural and engineered microbes. The microbes caused the weight of polyethylene to decrease by 7% and the weight of polystyrene to decrease by 11%.
