--- title: Scientists Found a Bacteria Than Can 'Eat' Plastic description: Scientists previously thought plastic couldn't be biodegradable canonical: https://time.com/4256185/scientists-find-bacteria-that-can-eat-plastic-bottles/ author: Charlotte Alter article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-03-11T23:13:54.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T15:50:45.533Z article:section: Science og:title: Scientists Found a Bacteria Than Can 'Eat' Plastic og:description: Scientists previously thought plastic couldn't be biodegradable og:url: https://time.com/4256185/scientists-find-bacteria-that-can-eat-plastic-bottles/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1a2c68a4cc0b6b3d/698875570b72e316116e743e/gettyimages-128374731.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: water bottles og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Scientists Found a Bacteria Than Can 'Eat' Plastic twitter:description: Scientists previously thought plastic couldn't be biodegradable twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1a2c68a4cc0b6b3d/698875570b72e316116e743e/gettyimages-128374731.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Scientists Find Bacteria That Can Eat Plastic Bottles  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Mar 11, 2016 11:13 PM UTC  Water Bottles Recycling Water Bottles RecyclingGNL Media—Getty Images  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Mar 11, 2016 11:13 PM UTC [Scientists in Japan](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6278/1196) have discovered a form of bacteria that can digest the plastic in disposable plastic water bottles, raising hopes it could be used to dispose of some of the 311 million tons of plastic produced annually worldwide. Plastic bottles contain polyethylene terephalate, or PET, a plastic ingredient which is also found in lots of[ other products, ](http://www.petresin.org/news%5FintrotoPET.asp)like polyester clothing, soda bottles, and tennis balls. PET is great for products but terrible for the environment, because until now it was believed to be unable to be broken down by microbes, which means it couldn’t be biodegradable. Much of the pollution in the ocean is made of PET. But a team of researchers in Japan have identified a species of bacteria that is able to degrade plastic using two key enzymes that break down PET and use it to grow– essentially, the bacteria can “eat” plastic. The discovery was published in[ Science ](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6278/1196)on Friday. The process is very slow (it took 6 weeks to completely degrade a small film of PET) but the discovery is exciting because it could present a glimmer of hope for scientists to return plastic products back to nature. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4256185/scientists-find-bacteria-that-can-eat-plastic-bottles/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4256185/scientists-find-bacteria-that-can-eat-plastic-bottles/"},"headline":"Scientists Find Bacteria That Can Eat Plastic Bottles","datePublished":"2016-03-11T23:13:54.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T15:50:45.533Z","description":"Scientists previously thought plastic couldn't be biodegradable","url":"https://time.com/4256185/scientists-find-bacteria-that-can-eat-plastic-bottles/","keywords":["Environment","Pollution","Science topic","Bacteria","plastic"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1a2c68a4cc0b6b3d/698875570b72e316116e743e/gettyimages-128374731.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Charlotte Alter","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1a2c68a4cc0b6b3d/698875570b72e316116e743e/gettyimages-128374731.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"water bottles","caption":"Water Bottles","creditText":"GNL Media—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/environment/","name":"Environment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4256185/scientists-find-bacteria-that-can-eat-plastic-bottles/","name":"Scientists Find Bacteria That Can Eat Plastic Bottles"}}]}] ```