Mushrooms That EAT Plastic!

Photo by Lucien Wanda from Pexels

Plastic accumulation has always been a serious issue for mankind living on this planet. Being notorious for its longevity and inbuilt resistance to natural degradation, it can remain from 20 to 500 years in the soil. The time it takes to degrade mostly depends upon its exposure to sunlight. It absorbs the UV radiation from the sunlight which results in the breakdown of its molecules. This process is termed photodegradation and is quite time-consuming. Plastic affects a number of other factors around it in the time that it spends in the environment. Estimates about plastic in the ocean claim that by 2050, there will be more plastic in oceans than the fish. 

A 2011 discovery in Ecuador has brought a fungus to light that has the capability to degrade polyurethane plastic even under anaerobic conditions. Pestalotiopsis microspora is a kind of endophytic fungus whose mycelia eat plastic within a few weeks and break down the plastic within a week leaving back a white puffy mushroom. Researchers have even discovered edible mushrooms like the Oyster mushroom also degrades plastic and tastes sweet with the smell of anise or licorice. 

Another side of plastic-eating mushrooms that are not edible for us is that some of them remove pollutants from soil and convert waste into biofuels. Aren’t these findings revolutionary? Indeed they are.

A pollution-free future of humankind lies in the mycelia of these fungi!

Magazine Editor,

MICROBIOL,

RSML.