Australian plastic-eating fungus targets polypropylene waste crisis

The Manila Times

Australian plastic-eating fungus targets polypropylene waste crisis  A newly isolated marine-derived fungus that can degrade polypropylene, discovered by Australian researchers, could represent a breakthrough in the battle against plastic waste.  The team at the University of Sydney, supervised by Professor Ali Abbas, said that while laboratory testing is still ongoing, the initial results show a promising improvement over their earlier findings.  In 2023, the team first discovered terrestrial fungi capable of degrading polypropylene by 21 per cent after 30 days and up to 27 per cent after 90 days, the highest rate of degradation they had seen documented globally.  The new marine-derived fungus currently being tested shows promise to exceed plastic-degrading potential of the terrestrial fungus, the team says.  The polypropylene is first pretreated with heat or UV light before being combined with the fungi in a liquid solution and left to incubate in a shaker, where the degradation happens.  REUTERS / THE OCEAN CLEANUP  Subscribe to The Manila Times Channel - https://tmt.ph/YTSubscribe  Visit our website at https://www.manilatimes.net  Follow us:  Facebook - https://tmt.ph/facebook  Instagram - https://tmt.ph/instagram  Twitter - https://tmt.ph/twitter  DailyMotion - https://tmt.ph/dailymotion   Subscribe to our Digital Edition - https://tmt.ph/digital   Check out our Podcasts:  Spotify - https://tmt.ph/spotify  Apple Podcasts - https://tmt.ph/applepodcasts  Amazon Music - https://tmt.ph/amazonmusic  Deezer: https://tmt.ph/deezer Stitcher: https://tmt.ph/stitcher  Tune In: https://tmt.ph/tunein  Soundcloud: https://tmt.ph/soundcloud   #TheManilaTimes #tmtnews #australia #fungus

Transcript

00:00It's different how is the colony size.

00:20Right, right. But something is very difficult to control, as you say.

00:24Yeah, something is difficult.

00:28Typically, plastics are very well known to be degrading over many, many years and even decades.

00:46This research has been showing that, in fact, fungi are able to degrade plastics much faster.

00:55The fungi produce enzymes that naturally break down materials like plastics.

01:11We are lightly treating these plastics before we feed them to the fungi, in a way to mimic

01:18the natural weathering of the plastics.

01:21As we know, plastics are found in many different environments in nature now.

01:27Our process connects the treatment steps with the biological steps in a way to optimize the

01:35degradation rate.

01:37The fungi use these enzymes to latch onto the plastics, but also to degrade them and break

01:44down the carbon into lighter compounds like carbon dioxide and water.

01:49And water.

01:50And water.

01:56in water.

01:57In water.

01:58in water

02:02In water.

02:03And water.

02:04In water.

02:06In water.

02:07with water looking at water.

02:11this one is we isolated in 2023 we discover it from the natural from the environment and

02:27we use it to degrade the polyplobrine plastic actually we achieve 27 percentage of degradation

02:39and it was the highest percentage for all the project which is published last time

02:57the second one is the new fungi we isolated from the marine so this fungi we are working on it this

03:08time and the result is promising result we use it to degrade the polypropylene plastic

03:38so

03:41so

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Transcript

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