Volume 3 • Issue 10 • 1000164 J Bioremed Biodeg ISSN: 2155-6199 JBRBD, an open access journal Research Article Open Access Sangale et al., J Bioremed Biodeg 2012, 3:10 http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2155-6199.1000164 Review Article Open Access Bioremediation & Biodegradation Keywords: Biodegradation, Polythene, Microbes, Waste, Biodegraded products, Toxicity Introduction e contamination of soil due to dispersal of industrial and urban wastes generated by the human activities is of great environmental concern [1]. Various plants possess the capacity to convert the toxic compounds into non-toxic forms and the process is known as phytoremediation. e concept of cleaning contaminated environment using plants is about 300 years old [2]. One of the major environmental threat is the slow/least rate of degradation or non- biodegradability of the organic materials under natural condition, e.g. plastics. e plastics of various forms such as nylon, polycarbonate, polyethylene-terephthalate, polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, polytetraflouroethylene, polyurethane, polyvinyl chloride are being continuously used in our day-to-day life [3]. Among the synthetic plastics waste produced, polythene shares about 64% [4]. As per the reports the most commonly used non-degradable solid waste is polythene which is a linear hydrocarbon polymers consisting of long chains of the ethylene monomers (C 2 H 4 ). e general formula of polyethylene is C n H 2n , where ‘n’ is the number of carbon atoms [5]. Polythene is made from the cheap petrochemical stocks extracted from oil or gas through efficient catalytic polymerization of ethylene monomers [6]. Polythene finds a wide range of applications in human’s daily use because of its easy processing for various products used for carrying food articles, for packaging textiles, for manufacturing laboratory instruments and automotive components [5]. Various polymers such as lignin and paraffins were reported to be degraded by various microorganisms [6,7]. Jen-hou and Schwartz [8] carried out the comparative degradation study of paraffins and polythene for the first time and recorded utilization of polythene in terms of the growth of various bacteria on these alkenes. ey concluded that microbes can degrade only low molecular weight polythene (MW up to 4800). Nineteen years later, degradation of high density polythene (HDPE) film (Mw 93000) was performed and it was documented that the main degraded component contained in HDPE film is the short-chain oligomer [9]. ere is no such structural similarity between polythene and lignin except to have carbon-carbon bonding which is being broken by these microbes and using the polymers as a carbon source. In the literature, various reviews had been written on biodegradation of the plastic [10-18]. Only a few review [19,20] deals with polythene but a comprehensive review on the polythene is lacking, so we tried to highlight the glimpses of the polythene biodegradation. We also tried to discuss, how to encounter the polythene pollution in future. Status of Polythene Pollution e use of plastic, especially polythene is growing day by day. Every year 25 million tons of synthetic plastics are being accumulated in the sea coasts and terrestrial environment [4-21]. Polythene constitutes 64% of the total synthetic plastic as it is being used in huge quantity for the manufacture of bottles, carry bags, disposable articles, garbage containers, margarine tubs, milk jugs, and water pipes [4]. Similarly, in the marine environment alone, out of total marine waste, plastic shares about 60-80% by mass [10]. All the polythene waste along with other plastic wastes generated by the human activity finally enters into marine water through rivers, canals/channels and municipal drainages. erefore, the beaches were reported to be the excellent depository sites for the polythene (plastic) wastes. At dumping sites, polythene waste degraded with both chemical and mechanical weathering but it takes long time for mineralization and may remain in the microscopic form for long time [22]. Annually 500 billion to 1 trillion polythene bags are being used routinely all over the world. Polythene is strong and highly durable and takes up to 1000 years for natural degradation in the environment. Furthermore, plastic degrades by sunlight into smaller toxic parts contaminating soil and water where they can be accidentally ingested by animals and thereby enter the food chain especially in the marine biota [23]. To the marine life polythene waste is recognized as a major threat. Sometimes, it could cause intestinal blockage in the fishes, birds and marine mammals [23-25]. As per report [26] due to plastic pollution in the marine environment minimum 267 species are being affected which includes all mammals, sea turtles (86%) and seabirds (44%). e death of terrestrial animals such as cow was reported due to consumption of polythene carry bags [27]. e polythene leads to *Corresponding author: Avinash B Ade, Department of Botany, University of Pune, Maharashtra, India, Tel: 91-020-25601439; Fax: +91-020-25690498; E-mail: avinashade@unipune.ac.in Received July 07, 2012; Accepted August 28, 2012; Published August 30, 2012 Citation: Sangale MK, Shahnawaz M, Ade AB (2012) A Review on Biodegradation of Polythene: The Microbial Approach. J Bioremed Biodeg 3:164. doi:10.4172/2155- 6199.1000164 Copyright: © 2012 Sangale MK, et al. This is an open-a ccess article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. A Review on Biodegradation of Polythene: The Microbial Approach Manisha K Sangale, Mohd Shahnawaz and Avinash B Ade* Department of Botany, University of Pune, Maharashtra, India Abstract The use of polythene is increasing day by day and its degradation is becoming a great challenge. Annually about 500 billion to 1 trillion polythene carry bags are being consumed around the globe. Polythene is durable and needs up to 1000 years for natural degradation in the environment. In the present review, an attempt has been made to pool all the available literature on the biodegradation of polythene under the following objectives: (1) to highlight the level of polythene pollution; (2) to enlist the cost effective methods; (3) to pool the source of polythene degrading microbes; (4) to brief the mechanism of polythene degradation; (5) to highlight the methods used for the biodegradation of the polythene; (6) to discuss the assessment of polythene degradation by efficient microbes; (7) to enlist the products of polythene under degradation process; (8) to test the toxicity level of the products of the degraded polythene, and (9) to discuss the future aspects of polythene degradation.