ISOLATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF POLYSTYRENE-DEGRADING BACTERIA Bacillus sp. ITP 10.1.1 FROM SOIL SAMPLE OF JAYAWIJAYA MOUNTAINS, PAPUA, INDONESIA

Abstract

The use of plastic is considered efficient because it can protect the product, resist impact, has good stretchpower, water resistant, and relatively cheap price. However mass plastic use can lead to serious environmental damage, because after use the plastic is discharged into the environment and not easily decomposed for a long time. Therefore, one effort that can be done is finding bacteria from nature that will be able to degrading the synthetic plastic. This research was conducted to isolate and characterize bacteria samples of the Jayawijaya Mountains soil that potentially able todegrading polystyrene plastics. Isolation of soil bacteria was carried out with the enrichment method and spread plate. Polystyrene plastic that has been made in thin film form, thencut to 1 cm x 1 cm, weighed, aseptically implanted on NA medium which was inoculated with bacterial isolates, and incubated for 4 weeks at 30oC. After the incubation period, the plastic film was taken, cleaned, dried and weighed again. Reduction of the weight of the plastic film before and after incubation was calculated in percentages by weight / weight. From this experiment, one potential bacterial strain to degrading polystyrene plastic film was obtained up to 29% b / b, namely ITP isolate 10.1.1. Macroscopic, microscopic and biochemical characterization of isolates of ITP 10.1.1 indicated that this bacterium is a Gram positive with bacillus form. The surface profile of the plastic film after 4 weeks of observation was observed with Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) showing the erosion and damage to the surface of the tested polystyrene plastic film.