Photo of Dr Gabrielle Zammit with Andrea Farrugia and Megan Borg, two of the students who work on the project. Also presently participating in the research is Sarah-Marie Caruana.
A team of researchers at the University of Malta (UM) is looking into accelerating the deterioration of plastics sold commercially in Malta, with a special emphasis on plastic bottles, containers and shopping bags. This research is particularly relevant to the current situation in Malta, where landfills are almost at maximum capacity and considerable amounts of single鈥恥se plastics are discarded daily to persist in our natural environment for an extended time period.
The researchers, students at the UM, are thus concentrating their efforts to find microbial deterioration processes that reduce the lifetime of discarded plastic packaging, by breaking it down completely to leave only harmless end products. The microbes used in these experiments are non-pathogenic.
At the same time, the different stages of deterioration of plastics in soil and sea water are being investigated, to give a clearer understanding of the processes that occur in the environment due to naturally occurring microbial communities.
This interdisciplinary project is led by Dr Gabrielle Zammit, Microbiologist at the Biology Department of the Faculty of Science, with student dissertations being co-supervised by Dr Daniel Vella, Materials Scientist from the Department of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering (DMME).
Apart from providing a unique opportunity for academics from different fields to exchange ideas, the project provides participating students with valuable training in a specialised area of microbiology, as well as experience in electron microscopy, chemical analysis and materials science. All this is facilitated through the dedication and support of expert technical staff across different departments at the UM, who share their knowledge with students and transfer valuable skills regarding the use of cutting-edge equipment and the latest technology. Students also benefit from the use of facilities available at the Biology Department, the Department of Chemistry, the Metamaterials Unit, the DMME and at the Centre of Molecular Medicine and Biobanking. Advice on statistical analysis is kindly provided by Professor Liberato Camilleri from the Department of Statistics and Operations Research.
While the research has already yielded some positive results for simple plastic polymers, the challenge remains to break down plastic that is sold commercially, due to additives incorporated during the manufacturing process that produce superior quality materials, which are unfortunately more difficult to break down.
The Gasan Foundation is supporting the initiative. This will ensure the completion of the initial phase of the research study involving experiments with naturally-occurring microbes.
