Professor

Microbial transformation of plastics in SE Asian seas: a hazard and a solution The microSEAP project brings together teams from the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore and the UK to work on marine plastic pollution using a perspective that starts from the microscopic scale but leads up to the ecosystem level. It works from sources of macro- and microplastics in the SE Asian megacities to plastic fate in coastal ecosystems, particularly beaches, mangrove forests and coral reefs, that act as unintended sinks for plastics. The microorganisms in the biofilm on these plastic particles include recruits with plastic-degrading enzymes whose activities become more and more important, the smaller the plastic particles become, eventually determining the very long but as-yet unmeasured residence time of plastics in the environment. These microorganisms also provide inspiration for enzymatic recycling to drive a shift from viewing petrochemical-derived discarded plastic as waste with a disposal cost, to a feedstock with value sufficient to incentivise recycling. The chemists, microbiologists, bioinformaticians, ecologists and engineers work with economists plus legal and governance specialists to ensure that findings are integrated into socially-relevant policies. Also see: https://micro2024.sciencesconf.org/559647/document