Plastic-eating fungus discovered in Amazonian rainforest

It's been filling landfills for the past 150 years -- used in everything from Tupperware to car parts -- and it's become one of our generation's greatest environmental concerns.

Now, Yale scientists say they may have a solution to the plastic problem.

PCWorld is reporting that the scientists found a fungus in the Amazonian rainforest, identified as Pestalotiopsis microspora - the first anyone has found that survives on a steady diet of polyurethane alone.

Amazingly, the fungus manages to do that in an anaerobic (oxygen-free) environment, conditions that are similar to the bottom of a landfill.

FastCoexist.com summed it up well: "Polyurethane seemed like it couldn't interact with the earth's normal processes of breaking down and recycling material. That's just because it hadn't met the right mushroom yet."

Yale student Pria Anand has been credited with recording the microbe’s remarkable behavior, and Jonathan Russell isolated the enzymes that allow the organism to degrade plastic as its food source.

The team published their findings in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology last year.

If scientists are able to harness the power of these little mushrooms, it could change the way we dispose of trash forever. http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/science_tech/break-it-down-fungus-eating-plastic-discovered-in-amazonian-rainforest