Good question

Dr. Peter Deines: »Bacteria are extremely adaptable and populate all habitats on earth. What’s special about them is that they can use different substrates as a source of carbon, and thus as food. Basically, this also means that they can consume plastic. Like human cells, bacteria benefit from the division of labor that exists in a community. We want to exploit precisely this principle in our approach to the research. Instead of looking for bacteria that are especially good performers on their own, we isolate entire communities from their en­vironment, such as an ocean. We then cultivate these bacteria so that they can recycle plastic much more efficiently together than they could on their own. That’s why this kind of biological recycling is ideal for use in environmental biotechnology.«

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