auressea:

end0skeletal:

rewind-on-purpose:

This is actually pretty exciting. They’ve found a way to turn plastic into food.

Mushrooms are such amazing things. Most are decomposers, meaning they break stuff down into its original components. Some break down dead wood, or animals, others can break down toxic waste, and apparently this one can break down plastic. How cool is that?

Pestalotiopsis microspora (a mushroom found in the Amazon rainforest) consumes polyurethane, the key ingredient in plastic products, and converts it to organic matter. 

Further, Pestalotiopsis microspora can live without oxygen, which suggests enormous potential for feeding on, and thus cleaning up, landfills.

It takes just a few weeks for the mycelium to start breaking down plastic, and in a few months’ time, the plastic is completely broken down, and all that’s left is a white puffy mushroom. Even if not eaten or used for anything else, the mushroom could be composted and turned in to soil at a much faster rate than that of plastic, which is estimated to take 400 years to decompose on its own.

And there’s more than one! 

https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/12/uk/fungi-plastic-mushrooms-intl/index.html

“Aspergillus tubingensis, which was found in Pakistan, is capable of eroding plastics such as polyester polyurethane, which is often used in refrigerator insulation and synthetic leather.”