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A fungus feeding on plastic is a blessing, growing in landfills and edible also is a triple delight. Students from Yale University (USA) discovered Pestalotiopsis in the Ecuador forests. Scientists from Utrecht University (The Netherlands), teaming up with designer Katharina Unger, developed the Fungi Mutarium, which has UV-treated plastic stuffed in the middle and nourished on pods of sugar gelatine.
Within a few months, the fungi digest the plastic and grows a mushroom-like cup tasting sweet and smelling like liquorice. A smaller-sized version to recycle plastic waste in households is in the pipeline.
Jonathan Russell and colleagues from the University discovered the fungus with polyurethane digesting capability and identified the enzyme which broke down the plastic material. Botanist Percy Nunez, a professor at National University of San Antonio Abad from Peru, identified them in the field.
The Yale students isolated the samples and found out the fungi could live on a diet of polyurethane, survive at the bottom of a landfill where oxygen is scarce. The process by which synthetic plastic polymers are broken down is called ‘bioremediation’.
