Plastic-eating Fungi: Solution to Overflowing Landfills?

A natural solution to the widespread problem of plastic waste? Bring it on.

The world is fast becoming a resting place for hearty plastic built to last, and last, and last. With the population and waste count both rising, we need a solution to the growing problem of waste, waste, waste.

Seems we might just have one, in the form of Pestalotiopsis microspora, a fungi discovered to have incredible polyurethane-eating properties. This was the report from a group of Yale students on academic sojourn in Ecuador. Part of the university's annual Rainforest Expedition and Laboratory enterprise, the group studied plants in their native environment and then brought back cultures of the teeny, tiny things they found inside the plants. In this case, they found fungi that have a voracious appetite for polyurethane, which is used to make a massive number of things in today's society.

Better yet, the fungi thrives in anaerobic conditions — meaning in the relatively oxygen-free environment of a vastly populated landfill. So the theory is this: Pile up all the shoes, garden hoses, toys, airplane wings, and all manner of other things that don't break down easily in a few generations; add some polyurethane-eating fungi; expect to see a reduction in the heap of garbage. It's that simple, apparently.

More data are needed, to be sure, and it's not exactly a straight line from these results to a plastic-eating fungi collection in everyone's back yard. But it's a start.