Question

Plastics-a new and powerful enemy of the environment, a project

Answer 1

Most plastics are durable and degrade very slowly; the very chemical bonds that make them so durable tend to make them resistant to most natural processes of degradation. However, microbial species and communities capable of degrading plastics are discovered from time to time, and some show promise as being useful for bioremediating certain classes of plastic waste.

In 1975 a team of Japanese scientists studying ponds containing waste water from a nylon factory, discovered a strain of Flavobacterium that digested certain byproducts of nylon 6 manufacture, such as the linear dimer of 6-aminohexanoate.[38] Nylon 4 or polybutyrolactam can be degraded by the (ND-10 and ND-11) strands of Pseudomonas sp. found in sludge. This produced γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) as a byproduct.[39]
Several species of soil fungi can consume polyurethane.[40] This includes two species of the Ecuadorian fungus Pestalotiopsis that can consume polyurethane aerobically and also in anaerobic conditions such as those at the bottom of landfills.[41]