Microbes across the globe are evolving to eat plastic pollution

Microbes across the globe are evolving to eat plastic pollution, a new Swedish study has determined.

Mass production of plastic has skyrocketed in the past 70 years, from approximately two million tonnes to around 380 million tonnes per year, with about eight million tonnes of plastic escaping into the world’s oceans annually, according to a release.

Researchers from Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology analyzed environmental DNA samples from around the world and found the number of microbial enzymes with the ability to degrade plastic is growing in correlation to local levels of plastic pollutions, detailing their findings in a study recently published in the journal mBIO.

As plastics production has ramped up over several decades, researchers posit this has given the organisms sufficient time to evolve and respond to the plastic compounds in their environment.

Researchers first compiled a dataset of 95 microbial enzymes already known to degrade plastic, such as those found in bacteria that live in landfills, and then looked for similar enzymes in environmental DNA samples taken by collaborating researchers from more than 200 locations around the world.