Philosophy.

Plastic is a central material to all of our daily lives.

Compared to all alternatives, plastics are extremely resource efficient. This circumstance, combined with their remarkable versatility as a material, makes them an indispensable commodity.

Therefore, plastic can be found almost everywhere: in packaging material as well as many common household items, but also in specialized products such as medical instruments and car parts. Manufacturing and processing of plastic is a huge industry employing over 1.5 million people in about 60 000 companies in the EU only.¹ This market is expected to double again in the next 20 years.²

However, it´s the properties that make plastic so important - durability and longevity - that are also making it hardly possible to be degraded naturally. This has vast environmental implications. Research suggests that our oceans currently contain around 150 million tons of plastic³ and that by 2050 there will be more mass of plastic waste in the ocean than fish². But there’s also economic implications. Plastics stay in their original form far, far longer than their average time of use, but still, 2.6 trillion dollars worth of plastic end up in our world’s landfills or are burned in incineration plants every year.⁴ The use of a long-lived material in a linear consumption pattern uncovers the need for an improved recycling system.

Currently, only 14% of plastic packages are collected for recycling and through those recycling processes, only 5% of the original material value can be retained. This is because plastics are mostly downcycled to lower-value products, which then cannot be recycled themselves. With that in mind, it is no wonder that global recycling rates for materials such as paper (58%)⁵, iron and steel (70 – 90%)⁶ are far higher. Plastic as a material needs to be redefined significantly, to improve the environmental situation as well. Creating a lucrative after-use market for plastic materials can give great incentive to build up collection and reprocessing infrastructures, hence reduce the amount of material entering the natural environment.

As a new recycling strategy, microbial degradation of plastics could become feasible in the future. Many different bacterial strains, including species from the genera Pseudomonas, Rhodococcus, Clostridium and Butyrivibrio, as well as fungal strains from genera such as Aspergillus, Fusarium and Mucor are capable of degrading plastics. Next to natural polymeres, such as cellulose and lignin, biofilm formation on- and biodegradation of many different petrol based polymeres, such as Polyethylene, Polyvinylchloride and Polyethylenterephthalat, by microorganisms, has been observed.⁷ These strains can be isolated from contaminated soil⁸ as well as waste water.⁹ For further information about the environmental implications of enzymatic plastics recycling and different opinions on that topic, please check out the Environmental Impact section below.

[1]: Plastics Europe, Plastics – the facts 2014/2015: an analysis of European plastics production, demand and waste data (2016).

[2]: L. Neufeld, F. Stassen, R. Sheppard, T. Gilman, Eds., The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the Future of Plastics (World Economic Forum, 2016).

[3]: Ocean Conservancy and McKinsey Center for Business and Environment, Stemming the Tide: Land-based Strategies for a plastic free Ocean (2015).

[4]: Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Towards the Circular Economy Vol. 2: opportunities for the consumer goods sector (2013).

[5]: International Council of Forest and Paper Associations, Statement on Paper Recycling (2017).

[6]: United Nations Environment Programme, Recycling Rates of Metals: A Status Report (2011).

[7]: V. M. Pathak, Navneet. Review on the current status of polymer degradation: a microbial approach (Bioresources and Bioprocessing, 2017, 4:15).

[8]: How to isolate plastic degrading bacteria from soil!

[9]: S. Yoshida, K. Hiraga, T. Takehana, I. Taniguchi, H. Yamaji, Y. Maeda, K. Toyohara, K. Miyamoto, Y. Kimura, K. Oda Supplementary Materials for A bacterium that degrades and assimilates poly(ethylene therephthalate) (Science 2016, Vol. 351, Issue 6278, pp. 1196-1199).