Training bacteria to produce environmentally friendly polymers of industrial and medical relevance

Abstract

The high demand of the increasing world population is resulting in the fast depletion of natural resources as well as challenging the long-term sustainability of natural ecosystems. This is clearly reflected in the environmental impact associated with the use of petroleum-based plastic materials. For instance, 8.3 billion tonnes of synthetic plastics were globally produced since the early 1950s (Geyer et al., 2017) and current estimates indicate that their production will reach 33 billion tonnes by 2050 (Rhodes, 2018).