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Systematic Review and Meta-analysis on the Application of Bacteria for the Biodegradation of Plastics
Summary
Researchers conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of 502 studies on bacterial plastic biodegradation, finding that specific strains like Pseudomonas AK31 degraded polystyrene mass by up to 19.9%, while bacterial consortia showed promising degradation activity on polyurethane films over 30 days. The findings confirm bacterial potential for plastic breakdown but highlight the need for standardized evaluation methods tracking both population dynamics and polymer mass reduction.
The accumulation of plastic waste is a problem that affects terrestrial and marine ecosystems, in addition to altering the quality of life of humans. The purpose of this research was to evaluate, through a systematic review and meta-analysis, the biodegradation of plastics using different species of bacteria. The study had a quantitative approach, applied type, non-experimental design of documentary review and descriptive-explanatory level. A total of 502 studies were collected from Scopus and Web of Science databases, in the period from January 2012 to September 2021. The results showed that Pseudomona sp. bacteria biodegraded lowdensity polyethylene (LDPE) by 1.8%, while Pseudomona AK31 reduced the mass of polystyrene (PS) by 19.9%. Regarding colonial growth, a bacterial consortium had a growth of 1.9E+06 CFU/mL and the bacterium Bacillus paralicheniformis had a growth of 6E+5 CFU/mL, both on polyurethane films for 30 days. Finally, it is concluded that bacterial strains can degrade plastics and for the evaluation it is necessary to know their bacterial population and the mass reduction of the polymer.