BIOREMEDIATION OF PREPROCESSED PLASTIC WASTES THROUGH MICROBIAL CONSORTIUM

Abstract

The plastic pollution is one of the anthropogenic effects which causes harm to ecolife through toxic compounds. The main objective of this present work is to imply the effect of pre-treatment of plastic wastes with microbial consortium. This work includes collection of soil sample from plastic dumped sites, isolation, identification, screening and compatibility analysis of microbial consortium, pre-treatment of polyethylene sheets by physical, chemical and Microbial degradation. Polyethylene sheets were pre-treated by a UV radiation and acetone. The pre-treated polyethylene strips were further degraded by using microbial communities that is isolated from plastic dumped sites. Nine types of bacterial colonies and fourteen types of fungal colonies have been isolated by serial dilution. The polyethylene degraders were screened by using two types of screening methods such as well cut and petri plate methods. There are four types of microbes were screened namely Bacillus sp., Aspergillus sp. (A1), Aspergillus sp. (A2), and Aspergillus sp. (A3). Four isolates and consortium of these microbes were analyzed for their ability in degrading plastics. The weight loss of polyethylene strips were detected after 30 days of incubation. In this study, maximum degradation of polymer shown by consortium with a reduction of 12%, Bacillus sp., showed 10% reduction and Aspergillus sp. (A1) showed 10% reduction under laboratory conditions respectively. Consortium of Bacillus sp., and Aspergillus sp., did not show any antagonistic effect over other microbes on Muller Hinton agar plates. Hence, it was concluded that this consortium could be potentially applicable for the bioremediation of pre-processed plastic wastes in future with less cost effective.