Science and Technology Daily Beijing, March 27 (reporter Liu Xia) Plastic bottles are known as "white garbage", and people avoid them as much as they do arsenic. And the British "Independent newspaper" website recently reported that Japanese scientists have newly discovered a kind of bacteria to its "honey", will degrade it. The scientists said that the bacteria is expected to have a positive role in the removal of plastic waste on Earth in the future.

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is the main raw material for our common disposable water bottles. It has the advantages of lightweight, colorless and strong, and is widely used. The global annual production is 50 million tons, but this plastic is difficult to be broken down or degraded by microorganisms.

Scientists from Kyoto Polytechnic University and Keio University in Japan have found that a type of bacteria can consume plastic bottles in six weeks at around 29 degrees Celsius. Their findings were recently published in the journal Science.

To find the bacteria, the researchers collected 250 samples contaminated with PET, including sediment, soil and waste water from plastic bottle recycling sites. They screened the samples for microbes living on them and eventually found a group of microbes that break down PET films, including one that degrades PET.

Tests showed that the bacteria used enzymes to break down PET, producing an intermediate chemical. This chemical is then taken up by the cell, where it is further broken down by other enzymes, providing the bacteria with carbon and oxygen to help it grow.

Although fungi that can grow on PET have been found before, this is the first time scientists have found a bacterium that can eat PET. Some experts say the bacteria could be used to "kill" the growing amount of planet-damaging plastic.

However, Trish Manser, a plastics expert at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the US, said that while the latest research was impressive, biodegradable plastic was not necessarily better than putting plastic bottles in recycling bins. However, he said the latest findings would make it easier to find other microbes with similar PET-degrading abilities.

At present, scientists are facing questions about how to make the bacteria survive under certain special conditions, and how to develop and use them properly.

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