Many plastic items are used for only a few minutes or hours, but the material can remain in the environment for decades or even centuries. Researchers are now exploring a different approach: plastics designed to break themselves down when activated.
Known as living plastics, these materials contain dormant microbes capable of degrading the surrounding polymer. In a study published in ACS Applied Polymer Materials, scientists developed a version that fully decomposed in six days without producing microplastics.
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