A Review on Biodegradation of Polythene: The Microbial Approach

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.