I would be very surprised at the estimate of hundreds of years of persistence. While bacteria cannot readily breakdown current plastics very fast, they do feast on it. The biggest problem is that they eat only the ends of each tiny plastic thread, because they cannot access it any other way.

But as pointed out in this article we have dumped millions of tons of bacteria food into the environment. They may eat it slow, but they do break it down. That combined with the effects of the sun and the open ocean currents, means that a lot of it is going away all the time. We are simply adding 10x to the problem for every 1x broken down.

The solution is to stop allowing plastics into our bodies of water. Another is to make the plastics themselves more degradable. The idea of sucking it all up and treating it with enzyme's in huge containers is ludicrous.

Today's garbage is tomorrow's resource.

Do we really want to start breaking down the billions of tons of plastic we have created and converting it into even more (by weight) CO2?

I think its worth considering that in its current state/form plastic represents trapped carbon that isn't going to make our atmospheric CO2 problem any worse. Degradation over centuries I don't think would be much of an issue. Degradation over decades to years and give up on CO2 limits.

Put a gene in a bacterium that codes for the enzyme. Turn it loose to clean up the waste. The bug evolves. Soon it is in our homes and machines and cleaning up modern civilization. A veritable Frankansteen. Facetious to be sure, but not quite out of the realm of possibilities.

Put a gene in a bacterium that codes for the enzyme. Turn it loose to clean up the waste. The bug evolves. Soon it is in our homes and machines and cleaning up modern civilization. A veritable Frankansteen. Facetious to be sure, but not quite out of the realm of possibilities.

...or eating us!

Still time to mandate biodegradability of modern plastics and correct course