How do plastic-eating bacteria work – do they gain energy from the consumption; and what are the waste products?
In: Biology
They eat it like a food source, yeah. Plastic has calories to be used if a creature manages to digest it. Simple proof of this: plastic burns. It’s got energy to be captured by oxidizing it.
The typical main waste products are carbon dioxide and water, the same things you get from burning it. Other chemicals can be produced, too.
As a rule of thumb: If there is a lot of some chemical where a reaction can release energy, then there is probably some lifeform that has evolved to use it as energy source. Plastic doesn’t occur naturally, so it has only been around for about 100 years. That’s a very short time span for evolution, so plastic-eating bacteria are still rare and limited to some specific types of plastic.
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