Researchers at the University of Waterloo have developed a new way to tackle one of the world’s most persistent forms of pollution: microplastics that slip through wastewater treatment plants and into rivers and lakes, and eventually into the food chain.
The team has engineered bacteria already found in wastewater systems to break down polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a common plastic used in clothing, carpets, and food and beverage containers.
PET plastics can take hundreds of years to degrade in the environment, slowly fragmenting into microplastics (plastic particles smaller than five millimetres total). These plastics are now found abundantly in water, soil, food, and even human blood.
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