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Plastic pollution and its global environmental impacts: a comprehensive review of microbial biodegradation mechanisms, plastic-degrading enzymes, emerging biotechnological strategies and artificial intelligence-driven approaches for sustainable plastic waste management
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This review pulls together current research on using bacteria and enzymes to break down plastic waste instead of relying on landfills or incineration, which are costly and create their own pollution. Scientists are now pairing this "microbial recycling" with artificial intelligence to speed up the discovery of plastic-eating enzymes, though the technology still needs more real-world testing before it can be scaled up. This matters because plastic waste breaks down into micro- and nanoplastics that are turning up in our water, food and even our bodies, so finding better ways to eliminate plastic waste could reduce our long-term exposure to these particles.
Plastic pollution has emerged as a critical global environmental challenge due to the persistence, chemical complexity and resistance of synthetic polymers to natural degradation, resulting in the widespread accumulation of micro- and nanoplastics across terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Conventional plastic management approaches, including landfilling, incineration and physicochemical treatments, remain limited due to high energy demands, economic constraints and the generation of secondary pollutants. This review critically synthesizes current advances in microbial biodegradation, focusing on mechanistic pathways encompassing abiotic pretreatment, enzymatic depolymerization and microbial assimilation. It further emphasizes the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the microbial degradation pathways providing a novel perspective that bridges experimental microbiology with data-driven enzyme discovery and process optimization. AI-based tools are critically evaluated for their ability to predict enzyme function, design microbial consortia and optimize degradation pathways, while also addressing current limitations related to data quality, model interpretability and experimental validation. Furthermore, this review identifies key research gaps, including the lack of standardized methodologies, limited scalability of laboratory findings and insufficient techno-economic assessments. These interdisciplinary advancements contribute toward the practice of sustainable plastic waste management and align strongly with the goals of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly, SDG 6 for clean water and sanitation, SDG 12 for responsible consumption and production of plastic polymers and SDG 13 for sustainable climate.
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Scientists are engineering special enzymes that can break down plastic waste, like water bottles and packaging, into harmless, reusable materials, using tools like AI to design better versions faster. This review rounds up recent progress in the field, and matters because plastic pollution and the microplastics it creates are increasingly linked to health concerns, so finding real ways to break down plastic (rather than just recycling it) could reduce our long-term exposure and environmental harm.
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This study developed a local infrared spectroscopy approach for in situ characterization of nanoplastic particles at surfaces, combining near-field optical techniques with conventional infrared spectroscopy. The method achieved spatial resolution below the diffraction limit, enabling chemical identification of nanoplastic particles too small for conventional FTIR analysis.
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This review paper rounds up current science on using bacteria, fungi, and their enzymes to break down plastic waste instead of relying on burning or burying it, which can create toxic byproducts. This matters because plastics that don't fully break down often end up as microplastics in our water, food, and even our bodies, so finding safer, more effective ways to biodegrade plastic could help reduce that long-term exposure. The authors note that while lab results are promising, scaling these methods up for real-world use is still a major challenge.
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Scientists are studying special bacteria, fungi, and algae that can actually "eat" microplastics by breaking them down with natural enzymes—this matters because microplastics are now found everywhere, including inside our bodies, and current cleanup methods aren't working well enough. This review pulls together existing research on these plastic-munching microbes and highlights promising advances, like an AI-engineered enzyme that speeds up plastic breakdown, though scientists note real-world cleanup is still slow and faces major hurdles before it can be used at large scale.
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Scientists are engineering special enzymes called lipases, think of them as molecular scissors, that can break down plastic waste, including the tiny microplastics that end up in our water, food, and even our bodies. This review paper (which summarizes existing research rather than presenting brand-new experiments) explains how combining AI with biology could make these plastic-eating enzymes faster and more durable, though scientists still need to figure out how to make them work well outside the lab. If successful, this approach could eventually offer a real, scalable way to clean up microplastic pollution rather than relying on energy-heavy chemical processes.
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