May 19, 2010 - Fungi Proven Reliable in Breaking Down Toxic BPA

BPA, the highly toxic chemical found in plastic, is linked to obesity, cancer, and endocrine problems in fetuses and children. In addition to its hyper-nastiness BPA is also ubiquitous in our daily lives.

Present in 2.7 million tons of plastic used to make baby and water bottles, sports equipment, medical and dental devices, CD's and DVD's, and more. Of course removing BPA entirely from plastics is the ideal scenario, but in the meantime, researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras have found a way to use fugus to safely break down BPA at the end of a product's life.

The IITM researchers assigned a singular control group of untreated polycarbonate and set three fungi commonly used in environmental cleanup to the work of breaking down another group. According to the journal Biomacromolecules, the fungi were successfully able to eat through the BPA, using it as an energy source and safely breaking down the highly toxic chemical at the same time.

However, this is not a case to give up efforts to eliminate BPA out of the plastic products most of us use everyday. This should be taken as knowledge that there is now a safe way to stop BPA from seeping into the environment - whether or not it will be utilized to wide-spread success is another story.

Also, check out our recent analysis of the difference between the 7 types of plastics.