Microplastics are currently considered impossible to remove from oceans and aquatic environments. However new research could point to an emerging solution. Researchers at Hong Kong Polytechnic University have found a way to use ‘sticky’ bacteria to collect and remove microplastic pollution. Bacteria have a natural tendency to group together and stick to surfaces as a sticky ‘biofilm’. This tendency was used to create microbe ‘nets’ that caught and stuck microplastics together into large blobs that could then be easily captured and recycled.
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