• tree_frog@lemm.ee
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    22 hours ago

    There are plastic eating microorganisms, both fungi, and bacteria.

    But, they take a long time to break down plastic. I’ve had a fungus that can digest plastic in a mushroom cultivation bag for nine months and only one specimen has made it through so far.

    I imagine splicing the gene that allows for the production of this enzyme into an ocean bound microorganism would clean up a lot of it while not affecting most of our terristrial infrastructure.

    Of course, folks put plastic tubing and what not in the ocean too, so I guess we’ll all have to die instead.