The Plastic Eater

An experimental plastic-digesting bacteria is released, and the world has to adjust.

In a bustling university lab in Osaka, Japan, a team of microbiologists celebrated a breakthrough. They'd engineered a strain of Ideonella sakaiensis, a bacterium already known for its PET-degrading enzyme, PETase, to also produce a novel enzyme, MHTase, capable of breaking down a broader range of plastics, including polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and other complex polymers like those found in paints and pipe linings. The microbe, dubbed I. sakaiensis X-7, was a marvel of synthetic biology, a potential savior for the planet's plastic pollution crisis. But not everyone saw it that way.


A group of radical students, part of an eco-activist collective called "Earth's Reckoning," had infiltrated the university's environmental science program. They believed humanity's reliance on plastics was a moral failing, and any solution short of total systemic collapse was complicity. To them, X-7 wasn't a tool for cleanup—it was a weapon to force change. One night, under the guise of a study group, they broke into the lab, stole a vial of X-7, and released it into a nearby storm drain, convinced they were unleashing nature's justice.


The microbe was small, unassuming, but relentless. Carried by rainwater, X-7 entered Osaka's water system, a labyrinth of pipes, reservoirs, and treatment plants. It thrived in the dark, wet environment, feeding on microscopic plastic particles shed from bottles, bags, and packaging that had seeped into the water over decades. PETase and MHTase worked in tandem, cleaving polymer chains into digestible fragments, which X-7 consumed to fuel its replication. Each division birthed more microbes, each as hungry as the last.


Within weeks, X-7 had spread beyond Osaka, hitching rides in rivers and municipal water lines. It encountered not just stray microplastics but the plastics integrated into modern infrastructure. PVC pipes, lined with plastic coatings to prevent corrosion, began to weaken as X-7's enzymes eroded their inner surfaces. Water treatment plants, reliant on plastic membranes for filtration, started failing as MHTase chewed through them. In homes and businesses, plastic-based paints on walls and pipes bubbled and peeled, exposing raw surfaces to moisture and decay.


The first signs of trouble were subtle. In Kyoto, a homeowner reported a slow leak under her sink, the plastic pipe pitted and porous. In Tokyo, a water main burst, flooding a street; inspectors found the pipe's plastic lining disintegrated, as if eaten from within. By the time scientists traced the issue to X-7, the microbe had colonized water systems across Japan and was spreading globally via international shipping and air travel, its spores carried in contaminated water bottles and equipment.


Panic set in. Water utilities shut down plants, but the damage was done. Leaking pipes caused widespread flooding, contaminating drinking water with untreated sewage. Hospitals struggled as medical devices with plastic components—IV tubes, syringes—degraded mid-use. Supply chains faltered as plastic packaging for food and medicine dissolved, spoiling goods. The economic toll climbed into the trillions, and governments scrambled to replace plastic infrastructure with metal or ceramic alternatives, a process that would take decades.


The students who released X-7 were arrested, but their manifesto, posted online, went viral: "We gave the Earth teeth to bite back." Some hailed them as heroes, others as terrorists. Meanwhile, X-7 continued its silent rampage, indifferent to ideology. Scientists raced to engineer a kill switch for the microbe, but its mutations, fueled by abundant plastic food sources, made it elusive. In labs worldwide, researchers watched in awe and horror as X-7 consumed samples of plastics once thought indestructible.


By the time a containment strategy emerged—a bacteriophage tailored to hunt X-7—the world had changed. Cities had reverted to older, less efficient water systems. Plastic use plummeted, replaced by biodegradable or non-plastic materials, but at immense cost. The crisis forced a reckoning with humanity's dependence on synthetic polymers, but not in the way the students had dreamed. X-7 didn't liberate the Earth; it exposed how deeply entwined plastic was with modern life, and how fragile that foundation could be when bitten by something as small as a microbe.


In the end, X-7 was mostly eradicated, but pockets lingered in remote water systems, a reminder of unintended consequences. The students, now in prison, watched as the world rebuilt, their revolution reduced to a cautionary tale. And in the depths of a forgotten reservoir, a single X-7 cell floated, waiting for the next plastic meal.