Filters are among the simplest defenses against the tide of plastic. In homes, they can trap fibers before they escape into wastewater. In cities, municipal systems can skim plastics before releasing water into rivers. In hospitals, air purifiers can keep synthetic fibers from floating into lungs. Each filter is a sieve, a net woven against a flood. Yet no matter how many are built, they can never catch everything. Plastics are already too deeply embedded in food supply chains, in soils, and in the atmosphere itself.
That is why scientists are reaching further. In 2016, a Japanese research team discovered a bacterium capable of breaking down PET, the polymer used in soda bottles.1 Since then, engineers have built “super-enzymes” that can digest plastics far faster, turning fragments back into building blocks that can be reused. Other teams are experimenting with genetically modified microbes, fungi, and even worms whose gut bacteria can degrade polymers.2
While filters, barriers, and biotech approaches aim to intercept plastics already in circulation, materials scientists are working to ensure that future generations of consumer goods do not perpetuate the cycle. A growing field of research is devoted to creating truly biodegradable materials that are not plastic-based, but instead derived from natural polymers such as starch, cellulose, chitin, or proteins. Unlike conventional “biodegradable plastics” that often fragment into microplastics rather than disappearing, these new materials are designed to break down into harmless compounds under real-world conditions of soil, water, and compost. A study examined how different materials influence bacterial colonization in marine environments. Researchers immersed microbeads made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in seawater for one week to observe microbial attachment and biofilm formation. Using high-throughput sequencing, they found that microorganisms rapidly adhered to all materials, forming distinct biofilms with unique bacterial community structures on each surface.3
Microbes are also currently being tested as potential mitigants against human plastic exposure. In 2025, a group from China demonstrated that certain probiotic biofilm-forming bacteria, including Lactiplantibacillus plantarum DT88 and Lacticaseibacillus paracasei DT66, could effectively adhere to and sequester microplastic particles within the gastrointestinal tract of mice.4 In mouse models, these strains bound 100-nanometer polystyrene nanoplastics, promoting their natural excretion by approximately 34% and reducing intestinal retention by 67%. The findings suggest that probiotic biofilms can physically capture and eliminate plastic contaminants, providing a novel biological defense mechanism against microplastic accumulation in the gut. Theoretically, then, these biofilm bacteria could serve as a source of protection against plastics.
Could probiotics really be the answer? Science has found that the use of live bacteria has its inherent limitations. This is because most biological phenomena, especially those involving the trillions of microbes on and in the human body, vary dramatically from person to person because of terroir — the highly personalized “soil” of the body. In wine making, terroir refers to the local soil, climate, and conditions that shape the flavor of the grape. In human biology, it’s an equally powerful idea: every person has their own internal landscape shaped by genetics, diet, environment, immune programming, prior infections, medications, stress, and even geography. The human microbiome is shaped by terroir — the unique biological “soil” of each person. Just as grapes grown in different regions develop distinct flavors, microbial communities flourish or falter depending on the individual human landscape, as personal as a fingerprint. Because of this, live microbial interventions show highly variable performance across people; a strain that thrives in one individual may never successfully colonize another. This is why achieving consistent biological performance across a diverse population is so difficult — the underlying terroir is never the same twice, not even in the same person. Yet technologies like Qi601, discussed shortly, sidestep this limitation by not relying on colonization or the production of unknown factors by live probiotics at all. As a non-living, biofilm-derived Probiomic®, Qi601 performs its function through physical binding and surface interactions, mechanisms far less dependent on the variable microbiome terrain. In a biological world defined by variability, Qi601’s consistency comes from working within nature’s terroir limitations, not fighting it — providing a functional benefit that does not require the microbiome to change, only to be complemented.
Materials engineers are working on plant-based films for packaging, seaweed-derived alternatives to single-use wrappers, and fungal mycelium that can replace styrofoam. Protein-based biopolymers are also being engineered to form flexible films that dissolve completely, leaving behind only amino acids and peptides readily reabsorbed into ecological cycles. The premise of these innovations is that they do not trade one form of pollution for another but instead close the loop by mimicking how natural materials enter and exit ecosystems. For these solutions to scale, industries will need to adopt standards that guarantee complete biodegradability rather than partial fragmentation. Policymakers and consumers alike are demanding transparency in how materials perform at their end of life, pressing companies to prove that their “green” products do not simply hide microplastic burdens.
Still, no solution is complete. Filters catch some but not all. Enzymes work in the lab but falter at scale. Packaging labeled “biodegradable” often fragments instead of vanishing, seeding microplastics into soils and waterways. The truth is sobering: there is no silver bullet. And all the while, plastics continue pouring into the world at a rate of hundreds of millions of tons each year, enough to cover and wrap around the world multiple times each and every year.
Yet there is hope — fragile, imperfect, but real. One of the most imaginative defenses now being tested are biofilm bacterial aggregates – clusters of inactivated microbes which act like sticky sponges. These sponges can trap plastic fragments before plastics might attach to the gut lining, and before they cross into the bloodstream. These probiotic-derived biofilm clusters act like plastic binding agents to escort plastics out of the body. Other natural products, such as chitosan, are being explored for their ability to bind plastics. Beyond the gut, researchers are beginning to imagine even more direct interventions — technologies that could one day cleanse the blood itself, using filters like plasmapheresis to capture circulating nanoplastics before they embed deeper in tissues. Aerosolized treatments, inhaled like asthma medications, are also being studied as potential shields against airborne fibers before they reach the lungs.
The scale of the challenge is daunting, but the direction is clear. Filters and sticky sponges will certainly help. Enzymes and blood-cleansing technologies may further decrease plastics already adsorbed into the body. Yet the tide will not truly turn until society stops manufacturing eternity in the form of disposable plastics. At the same time, the world must contend with the legacy of the past fifty years — billions of tons of plastic already produced, fragmented, and circulating through air, water, soil, and bodies. That residual burden cannot be ignored; it must be addressed even as production systems slowly change. The time for shields is now — but the time for transformation must follow close behind.
1. (Yoshida S et al. A bacterium that degrades and assimilates poly(ethylene terephthalate). Science. 2016 Mar 11;351(6278):1196-9. doi: 10.1126/science.aad6359. PMID: 26965627.)
2. (Cai Z et al. Biological Degradation of Plastics and Microplastics: A Recent Perspective on Associated Mechanisms and Influencing Factors. Microorganisms. 2023 Jun 26;11(7):1661. doi: 10.3390/microorganisms11071661. PMID: 37512834; PMCID: PMC10386651.)
3. (Wang J et al. Unique Bacterial Community of the Biofilm on Microplastics in Coastal Water. Bull Environ Contam Toxicol. 2021 Oct;107(4):597-601. doi: 10.1007/s00128-020-02875-0. Epub 2020 May 16. PMID:
4. (Teng X et al. Novel probiotics adsorbing and excreting microplastics in vivo show potential gut health benefits. Front Microbiol. 2025 Jan 10;15:1522794. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1522794. PMID: 39867494; PMCID: PMC11757873)