#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. Scientists at the Arctic Floating University – 2024 (AFU) hope to discover fungal and bacterial enzymes in the Arctic that destroy plastic. This finding could be the first step towards solving the plastic waste problem.
The scientists will search in the coastal strip of the Arctic islands, where they will collect fragments of plastic waste with traces of biofouling left by animals, plants, bacteria and fungi that settle on plastic, TASS writes. They can release substances that decompose plastic, said Marina Polyakova, a graduate student at the Baikal Museum of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Siberian Branch.
“Our global goal is to find plastic biodestructors, those organisms that will ultimately help us somehow solve the problem of plastic accumulation and recycling”, she said.
She studies such biofouling on lake Baikal, placing special structures at different depths of the lake and collecting samples every three months.
“Not every plastic is suitable for such processing as to make a new one out of it. As a rule, no one accepts plastic with biofouling for recycling. So we hope that microorganisms will help us solve this problem”, she added.
Bacteria and fungi that can destroy plastic are already known to scientists. However, experts hope that similar organisms living in the Arctic are more viable, and their enzymes may be more active.
“Perhaps their enzymes will be more active, at least active in the cold. Still, most of our country is quite cold regions. And therefore, in my opinion, the search for these producers among psychrophiles (cold-loving organisms) is of greatest importance”, Polyakova said.
Follow us on Telegram, VKontakte.
Text: Victor Borodin, Photo: Nikolay Shchipko
