Ein marine bacteria can ingest and digest plastic. A Dutch-German research team proved this in a laboratory test. Maaike Goudriaan's group from the Royal Netherlands Institute of Sea Research on the North Sea island of Texel brought the bacterium Rhodococcus ruber together with a special polyethylene and measured the carbon dioxide that was produced. Extrapolated over a year, the bacterium metabolizes slightly more than one percent of the plastic into CO2. Other metabolites are not considered.

 

 

 

It was known that Rhodococcus ruber can form a biofilm on plastic in nature. In addition, it has already been measured that plastic disappears under this biofilm. "But now we have shown that the bacteria actually digest the plastic," says Goudriaan. The researcher evaluates the results as an answer to the question of where a small part of the plastic disappears in the sea. But she emphasizes: "This is certainly not a solution to the problem of plastic soup in our oceans."