APPLICATIVE INSIGHTS TOWARDS POLYHYDROXYALKANOATES (PHAs) DERIVED FROM WASTE RESOURCES

Abstract

Increasing plastic waste has been a subject of great concern, causing grave damage to the environment and health hazards to living-being across the globe. Modernization of lifestyles requires quickly disposable products, such as bags, water bottles, soda cans, etc. However accumulating these products has led to severe issues of plastic pollution. Uncontrolled and continuous accumulation and disposal of plastics in our surroundings lead to several critical issues, such as the ingestion of plastics by wildlife, increasing soil infertility, and transfer of leached chemicals from plastics to aquatic life and humans. The growing plastic waste in our surroundings has warned about several consequences. This year, United Nations celebrated World Environment Day with the theme of “Beat Plastic Pollution” to bring awareness to the use and disposal of plastic. Despite several regulations and approaches to managing plastic waste, the growing use of plastic for various applications in daily life has been a big concern worldwide. The biotechnology processes are gaining significant attention to mitigate the effects of plastic pollution in the environment by breaking down or degrading the different varieties of plastics. The operations began by isolating and selecting microbes from the plastic waste of sea, landfills, composting facilities, anaerobic waste treatment plants, and contaminated industrial sites. Bacteria and fungi are effective in breaking down, detoxifying, and valorising plastic waste. Considering the increasing threat of plastic waste to the environment and living-being, it is the need of the hour to bring in biodegradable polymers to replace conventional plastics. One such biopolymer, which has gained extensive interest in the past few years, is polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA), naturally obtained from bacteria. The PHA can be degraded easily and has unique features due to the chemical diversity in its structure. It can be formed from multidirectional carbon sources. PHA is composed of variable monomer units exhibiting structural diversification, thus having immense potential of various applications. There are more than 150 different monomer units that can be found in the side chains of these alkanoates.