A Global Plastic Waste Problem and Plastic Eating Bacteria as a Possible Solution

If you are in underdeveloped or better still developing countries, especially in Africa, there is a possibility of seeing a huge dumpsite when going out. The government just leveled one some months back where I live and I must confess that one of the things that were disturbing was the stench from the place and the heavy smoke coming from burning the dirt. Whenever I passed through the refuse dump, two things that were common were plastic bottles used to pack bottled water and soft drinks, and sachet for water that is referred to as pure water in Nigeria. A lot of us like to take carbonated beverages, and I take a lot of pure water as well since it is quite cheaper than bottled water but there isn't an alternative when it comes to taking carbonated drinks. Let me focus this post on writing about the effect of this plastic after being used.

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In 2021, according to statista.com, about 583.3 billion PET bottles were produced for the purpose of water and soft drinks and that is a lot of bottles to be produced. In 2019, I was in the Benin Republic, at the Dantokpa market, which is close to the Ouémé River. I was seeing plastic and cans at the water bed and this is not usually in countries where recycling isn't a major thing. I remembered asking a woman, and she said, the people in the area see it as a place to throw their plastic, and even feces into. I have hardly seen people who would not take soft drinks although my dad doesn't take them at all even though he works at Coca-Cola, but a lot of people take carbonated soft drinks, energy drinks, or any other type of drink that is bottled in PET bottles.

In the past, soft drink companies used reusable bottles for their drinks and I remember those days as a child when I was asked to get a soft drink, basically Coca-cola, I would pay a deposit for the bottle, go with the bottles, and when we were done with the bottles, I would return them to the seller and collect our deposit back. While there were days when they could get broken causing us to lose our money, my mum would ask us to keep the bottle for people who would buy them, and go recycle them, so it was very rare to see glass bottles at every nook and cranny but then, our deposits for the bottle was gone. I was a fan of glass bottled drinks and would learn to be careful not to break the bottle until PET bottles came into being in my country. The first time I saw a plastic soft drink bottle was a Coca-Cola 2-liter bottle my dad brought home. In Nigeria, it started with the 2-liter bottle, then the 1-liter PET bottle, but it was only a matter of time before it became a 50cl thing. Let me state clearly that this plastic issue is not solely caused by plastic bottles from drinks alone, it goes as far as body lotion plastic, detergent bottle, ziplock bag, plastic plate, and so on.

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The plastic waste problem is becoming a world problem with even aquatic animals choking on plastic. This has led to the death of organisms, and pollution of the water body as a result of the inability to degrade easily. It is very painful when I realize how much harm plastic waste cause to aquatic habitats seeing that I love to eat aquatic life such as fish. It is no doubt that PET is cheaper than glass bottles when it comes to the process of collection, rewashing, and rebottling, but then it produces a lot of waste. When not recycled, PET bottles are likely to outlive us before they get decomposed, that is if they get decomposed, but also, it is important to know that PET bottles are recyclable. So why do we still see them as waste? Would we say that people are just dirty and nonchalant, or do we say that the lack of recycling factories in so many regions is why this is happening?

From my own observation, I haven't seen a recycling facility in my area or even in states close to my current location, and that could actually be a problem since there are more plastics produced than the recycling infrastructure available. In countries where there are recycling facilities, the problem goes from having a recycling factory to the collection of bottles. While there are locals who do this for the purpose of feeding themselves and their families, their impact is yet very little compared to the number of plastic waste available.

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You might not really understand the effect of plastic in our environment but hopefully you would understand the effect of plastic in your body, as plastic has been seen in the human digestive system, and this can come from what we eat. Science is doing its best to solve this problem in the best possible way and this is where plastic-eating bacteria comes into play. The organism Ideonella sakaiensis, has the ability to eat polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles. Ideonella sakaiensis is able to break down bottles, thanks to its enzymes PET hydrolase (PETase) and mono(2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalate hydrolase (MHETase). Hopefully, science is doing more to find a way to biodegrade plastic, because left to the companies using PETs, complete recycling might be difficult as a result of the conditions listed.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/723191/production-of-polyethylene-terephthalate-bottles-worldwide/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9668955/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896972204205X