Could Animals Evolve to Eat Plastic?

While this is April Fool's Day, it is important to recognize that extinction is no joke. There are species around the world that are going extinct due to our plastic pollution and other actions that we can change whenever we choose.

Plastic is difficult to digest because animals do not have the required enzymes to break it down into its smaller pieces. Without breaking down, the plastic remains an undigestible blockage.

For comparison though, most animals also lack the ability to break down cellulose into its smaller pieces. But that doesn't stop termites from using microorganisms that CAN digest wood as a way to get those nutrients. (Note: some termites can produce limited amounts of cellulose-breaking enzymes) But we have a possible mechanism for animals to break down plastic.

Next challenge: plastic monomers are all pretty unhealthy. They are (depending on the type of plastic) flammable, toxic, and possibly carcinogenic. A plastic-eating animal has to deal with the health effects of breaking down plastic.

And even if an animal successfully recruited bacteria to digest plastic, and also detoxified the resulting chemicals, they would only be able to eat SOME types of plastic. The other types of plastic pieces would be undigestible blockages (the way they are for every animal now). Maybe this future animal could eat bits of water bottles, but they would still choke on Legos. There is no way for the animal to know which pieces would digest or not. I think this is a deal-breaker that would prevent any large plastic-foraging animal.

If animals ever thrive off of plastic, it will be by acquiring nutrients through the food web, with bacteria doing the initial digestion.

As a side note, I thought it was going to be really hard to track down all six major types of plastic with the objects in my house. Turns out it is absurdly easy! This would be a good activity to try, to realize how much plastic is in your life!

#teamseas

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[GeoZoo-official.]

HA! I KNOW WHERE YOU GOT THE CLIP AT 3:35 FROM! That website always comes in handy. Also whatever you say about how difficult plastic can be to become a prime food source may be true, but as Dr. Ian Malcolm says, "life finds a way". Feathers seem impossible to evolve, and seem to break the laws of physics, but here we are now, with a colossal family of animals full of feathers.

[Ecotasia]

Really interesting, and great conservation message at the end!

[edpims]

Very interesting video ! I’m subscribed to support your work 😁

[naturewithgabe]

Love this thought exercise. Cool topic and video.

[TheWildlifeBrothers]

This is a really interesting thought, I certainly think that the hypothesis that bacteria could digest the plastic and then get eaten by other animals to form a food web has some weight. Good call to action at the end!
- Harrison and Evan

[sundaewilliams]

I was reaching the oil gland on the top of my chicken tail and how it works and stumbled upon your videos I would like to say that I appreciated your knowledge and tone on all of your videos they are wonderful to watch awesome content and easy to understand and fallow and very interesting I am not one to leave comments this one makes maybe the second or third ever so thank you I hope that you are well

[vernonfridy]

Also, the way the introduction is phrased makes it sound like fungi are animals.

[marcopohl]

I loved the sass at the end there. This whole idea reminds me of an idea I had: a company came up with an edible fungus that can eat plastic (the promotional material never shows anyone eating it, it kinda looks like mold and I haven't heard from them in ages. All red flags that this is probably fake, but I'm assuming it's real for the sake of the discussion), why not drop it in the ocean? It would clean the place up and filter feeders probably couldn't tell it apart from their usual food source, so it would feed them too. P.S. I finished the war of art now.

[gsxrman]

Optimistic thought, but how long does any microbial evolutionary trait take to manifest. I am pretty ignorant about this but even with intervention, long time . Afraid this is just a gargantuan case of sheeting the nest .

[fabiomgm]

Well, they and we, have no choice anymore. It's everywhere now.