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Plastic identity
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Descriptive name for the polymer, molecular weight and source.
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Study reproducibility.
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Almeida, et al. [151, 160]
|
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Plastic composition
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Complete polymer composition, plus composition and quantity of all additives and fillers.
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To differentiate the degradation of polymer and additives.
|
Montazer, et al. [169], Novotný, et al. [170]
|
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Microbial taxonomic classification
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Taxonomic classification from well-characterised marker genes such as full 16S rRNA gene sequences for bacteria.
|
Reproducibility and the extrapolation of findings to related species. Benefits studies into the phylogenetic distribution of plastic-degrading traits.
|
Novotný, et al. [170], Hu, et al. [171]
|
|
Isolation environment and conditions
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Strain isolation location and site-specific properties such as temperature and pH.
|
Identification of environments favourable for microbial plastic degradation.
|
Novotný, et al. [170]
|
|
Strain accessibility
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Deposition and description of isolated strains in international culture banks.
|
Permits greater reproducibility and further study by other researchers.
|
Yoshida, et al. [161]
|
|
Assessment of plastic degradation
|
Description of techniques used for confirmation of degradation, and preferably the use of multiple complementary methods (Fig. 4).
|
Confirmation of degradation. It is important to confirm how techniques differentiate between the degradation of the polymer and additives, where included.
|
Yoshida, et al. [161, 164]
|
|
Plastic-degrading enzyme and gene identification
|
Identification of the enzyme responsible for the biological degradation and its gene sequence.
|
Allows mining of molecular databases, recombinant gene expression, enzyme optimisation, etc.
|
Kawai, et al. [160], Yoshida, et al. [161]
|
