In vitro biodegradation of low-density polyethylene by soil microorganisms

The accumulation of recalcitrant plastics in the environment, particularly polyethylene, is a major threat to the ecology. Among the different kinds of polyethylene, low-density polyethylene (LDPE) is the most widely used polyethylene. The goal of this work was to isolate and discover a powerful polyethylene degrading microbial strain from plastic waste disposal soil. The bacterial and fungal strains were isolated by enrichment technique and were identified based on the morphological and biochemical characteristics. Further, they were screened individually for their lowdensity polyethylene (LDPE) degrading efficiency by in vitro biodegradation assay. The efficiency of the potent strain to colonize on the LDPE surface and its biodegradation ability were investigated. The degraded products of low-density polyethylene were analysed by FTIR after the biodegradation study which was conducted for a long incubation period by inoculating the selected bacterial strain in synthetic medium (SM) with LDPE as the carbon source. Totally six different bacterial and five different fungal strains were isolated from the polluted soil. Among the bacterial strains, the JSB2, JSB3 and JSB4 and among the fungal strains, JSF1, JSF3 and JSF4 showed maximum growth, more cell surface hydrophobicity and weight loss and they were selected for further studies. The incubation of LDPE films with bacteria and fungi led to the formation of new absorbance bands such as dehydrated dimer of carbonyl group (1720 cm-1), CH3 deformation (1463 cm-1) and C=C conjugation band (862 cm-1). The results inferred that the exogenous addition of these microbes to LDPE contaminated soil causes an enhanced degradation. Among the microbial isolates, Bacillus species showed high degradation.