Plastic pollution is a significant problem that not only affects the environment, but human’s health as well. There have been many implementations created in order to eliminate plastic in the Earth’s waterways but, none of the approaches have been successful in collecting microplastics.

Microplastics are tiny pieces of plastic debris that occurs after years of plastic degradation in the environment. Even though microplastics seem to cause less problems, there are still extremely harmful due to the toxins that are still present in these tiny particles of plastic.

In 2014, researchers at Keio University and Kyoto Institute of Technology discovered a bacterium called Ideonella sakaiensis, that can use PETase and MHETase to degrade polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is the most common type of plastic debris found in marine environments. Instead of using the bacterium Ideonella sakaiensis, we inserted the enzymes into K-12 E.coli cells for safety reasons.

The genetically modified bacteria is expected to be able to degrade plastic into ethylene glycol and terephthalic acid. We are investigating ways in which these monomers could be used as a possible energy source. The Baltimore Bio-Crew intends to use these engineered E.coli to degrade PET plastic that cannot be recycled, in laundry filters to degrade the microplastics released after washing clothes, or degrading plastic in marine environments such as the Inner Harbor, using bacteria or the enzymes themselves contained inside of a device.