IDENTIFICATION OF MICROBES FOR THE BIOREMEDIATION OF POLYESTER (PET) MICROFIBRE

Plastic waste pollution is an environmentally threatening issue that especially harms the marine population. Target 14.1 of the UN Sustainability Goals seeks to “prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds” by 2025. Plastics constitute up to 80% of marine debris but, of this, microplastics may be the most damaging to marine ecosystems. In their recent study of microplastics recovered from the South China Sea, Yu et al. (2020) found that over 80% were microfibres, with the greatest proportion (30.8%) composed of the polyester, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) (Yu et al. 2020). The purpose of this investigation is to discover microbes with PET-degrading activity that might then be used in water/waste treatment to reduce polyester microfibre pollution in marine environments. Working with bacteria recovered from samples of polyester fabric that had been buried in soil/leaf litter for three months before recovery, we have used a progressive series of aromatic substrates (toluene, sodium benzoate, benzyl benzoate and finally a suspension of PET microfibres) as a screen, since the repeat unit of PET includes benzene carboxylate ester bonds.