Plastic pollution stimulates bacteria growth in lakes.
The results of a new study suggest that chemicals filtered from plastic bags stimulate bacteria growth in lakes more than natural organic matter. The results are based on samples taken from 29 lakes in Scandinavia, and may help with pollution mitigation strategies in certain cases
According to the study published in the journal Nature Communications on Tuesday, July 26, “plastic waste is causing widespread contamination of fresh water, and the cracking of plastic releases compounds that can provide energy for bacterial growth, but can also lead to an increase in bacterial growth.” Growth is also stunted by toxicity, however, how these compounds affect microbial metabolism and growth rates is not well understood
Bacterial growth doubles with even a small increase in carbon, and carbon from plastic shopping bags is 4% of the carbon already in these,” says Andrew Tannintsap, professor in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge and first author of the study. lakes".
In statements to Al-Alam, Tannentsab adds: Bacteria grow on carbon derived from plastic shopping bags much more efficiently than those found in the natural environment. Because the types of carbon molecules are more biologically reactive with bacteria, bacteria can more easily absorb carbon molecules during their metabolism.
He continues: We conducted an experiment using the water of 29 lakes across Scandinavia, cut plastic bags from four major UK shopping chains, put them in the water for 7 days, collected the water that came out of these bags and added it to the lake water and measured how bacteria grows, and in At the same time, we used a very powerful mass spectrometer to describe the types of carbon compounds that are produced from shopping bags and to compare the structure of the molecules with that of lakes.
For the study's first author, the findings of his research team are important. Because plastic debris pollutes every environment on Earth, such as rain, food, and blood, adding: We conducted a previous study last year, and found that microplastics are widely distributed in European lakes, however, plastic is just another organic compound, like the infinite number there are in the natural environment, but there is little data on how its by-products differ from those in the natural environment and their biological fate and my final word is that the study reinforces the need to be more careful about how disposal of plastic waste; Because it can have dramatic and unexpected effects on nature