Remediationof soils polluted with micro plastics - Microbial degradation of plastic debris

Plastics are widely used in modern agriculture both directly as plastic mulch, cover films, silage bags, and inintentionally as sewage sludge or compost with partly decomposed plastic or with plastic coared seeds and fertilizers. From the 1990th on plastics from fossible sources were used , in the past decade the use of biobased and biodegradable plastics has strongly increased. There is increasing concern on the pollution of agricultural soils with different polymers and the fact that no techniques exist to clean the soils. Therefore, the goal of this project is to assess the potential of fungi and bacteria to degrade plastic mulch films composed of pure low-density polyethylene (LDPE), commercial LDPE+additives (LDPE_m, hereafter), and bio-based polymers made of cellulose (BIO_c), cellulose starch blends (BIO_cs), PLA, and PBAT. Hence, the following objectives, aligned with the scope of the SOPLAS project, can be highlighted: 1) Identification of the most adequate microbial treatments and the surrounding conditions for the degradation of LDPE_m, LDPE_p, BIO_c, BIO_cs, and PBAT; 2) Evaluation of the potential of the successful microbial treatments to degrade LDPE-based and bio-based polymers in the soil, and assess its impact on the native microbial communities; 3) Assessment of the microbial treatments interaction with the native soil microbiome and their impact on microplastic degradation in a soil-plant system. 4) Evaluation the effect of the four main climate European zones on plastic biodegradation and soil microbiome in a soil-plant system.