As reported in the previous installment of this series, students are getting involved in researching clever methods to degrade and remove plastic waste. How are these students progressing with these solutions?
One recent trend has been to explore the use of fungi to degrade plastic waste. Ketly Ilvest, one of two Estonian finalists at the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) last year, studied the decomposition of artificial materials with oyster mushroom culture. When interviewed about her project, she felt that the process could be sped up by inserting the plastic directly into the soil instead of further away from the mushroom.
