An Updated Review on the Bioremediation of Marine Plastic Pollution

Almost 300 million tonnes of plastic waste are generated annually. Although this issue could be overcome by switching to biodegradable polymers, the existing detrimental effects of synthetic plastic wastes must be dealt with. Various modes of plastic degradation have been tried so far which include the Physical, Thermal, and Chemical means of degradation. Recently biodegradation of synthetic polymers has caught the eyes of researchers and a wide range of microorganisms have been found as potential degraders of these plastics. A concern to protect the environment and human safety led us to explore and research to fill this knowledge gap. Microorganisms have been found to have the capability to adapt themselves to the environment and alter their catabolic pathways in such a way that they either directly utilize these plastic wastes as a carbon source or produce by-products that target the polymer structures. This review paper deals with plastic pollution in the marine environment and how biodegradation could be a solution to it. It shows the various issues faced by marine wildlife and draws a focus on the microplastics that act as a pelagic habitat for the microorganisms. It also talks about the potential microbes from marine sources that can degrade plastics and potential enzymes produced by some of them. These findings pave the way to further enhance the development of environment-friendly degradation processes and products by protein engineering of these enzymes, strain engineering, understanding the genomics and proteomics of the enzymes, and generating an enzyme-based product for large-scale plastic waste management.