Learned about a new company that recycles plastic Midori-bio. Their whole schtick is that they can make plastic degradeable, which also produces an of-gas. Honestly a little suspect. They don’t say what that offgas is … and they dont say if landfills will need to have special equipment to harness it for heat (is it methane? its always methane…) If it is methane, well, thats a bit of a problem. While we’ll get rid of plastic in the landfill (WIN!) We’ll turbo charge global warming (loss!!) I do applaud their efforts.
got me thinking back to 🌿 📝 Fungal Ecology 201, where we talked about remediation. I wonder if any mushrooms could degrade plastics, or be engineered to eat plastics. The mushrooms, once complete, could be composted. WIN! I’ll be using this note to do research on it. I guess the goal of this note is to create a white paper / proposal to research mushrooms and their plastic degredation qualities.
Does OSU or UO have a mycology program? Maybe I could do research there - or connected with the community college on this process? interesting that I keep finding interests outside my area of expertise…
Mushroom Candidates; PU (polyurethane) decomposers: Pestalotiopsis microspora — classic paper showing isolates that can degrade and utilize polyester polyurethane(including under low-oxygen conditions). PMC
-
Cladosporium spp. (including marine strains) — PU biodegradation shows up repeatedly in the literature. ScienceDirect
-
Aspergillus spp. (including A. tubingensis) — frequently discussed in fungal plastic biodegradation reviews; just be careful with sensational claims online and rely on primary literature
PET and Polyester candidates: Humicola insolens cutinase, Fusarium cutinases (e.g., F. solani pisi, F. oxysporum) — repeatedly cited as PET-degrading enzyme sources.