It has become apparent that the global reliance on plastic is not only due to the increased commodification of modern society, but also due to practical applications which have become too inextricably intwined in every industry. The global Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 has particularly illustrated this. The solution to the plastic problem lies in a systematic overhaul of international sustainability initiatives, waste management strategies, and prioritising recovery of materials trapped in end-state plastic, as well as developing comprehensive complete recycling systems.
With the discovery of microorganisms that are able to degrade plastic, an avenue of sustainable recycling has opened for closing a loop on a circular economy system. One such bacteria is Ideonella sakaiensis which produces a hydrolase capable of depolymerising PET, aptly dubbed a PETase. In addition, with an MHETase which aids in converting dimers for complete recovery of monomers, I. sakaiensis is able to efficiently degrade PET of varying crystallinity, with a preference of low crystallinity PET.
In this work, the objective was to characterise growth conditions which would produce reliable and reproducible set of methods to obtain the biggest biofilm growth, while investigating how it affected the degradation of PET. The project did not fulfil the goals set out, however, it concluded that the research is valuable even without the use of molecular tools, in order to identify the base characteristics of the species, for comparative purposes as well as better insight into the direction future research may go towards.