每年有3亿吨塑料垃圾被丢弃，其中只有10%会循环再利用。

“When I started learning about the statistics about all the plastic waste we have, essentially that told me we have a really serious problem here and we need some way to address it,” Ms Vague told .

“当我了解到这些塑料垃圾的统计数据，我意识到问题时多么的严峻，我们需要一些方法来处理，”Vague女士说道。

After she began learning about bacterial metabolism and “all the crazy things bacteria can do”, the student decided to find out if there were microbes out there able to degrade plastic.

在学习了细菌代谢并了解了“细菌可以处理这些疯狂的物质之后”她决定找出是否有细菌可以降解塑料。

She began hunting for microbes adapted to degrade plastic in the soil and water around refineries in her hometown of Houston.

于是她开始寻找她家乡休斯敦附近精炼厂旁边可以降解土壤和水中的塑料的微生物。

Taking her samples back to college in Portland, Oregon, Ms Vague began testing around 300 strains of bacteria for lipase, a fat-digesting enzyme potentially capable of breaking down plastic and making it palatable for the bacteria.

她把样品带回了俄勒冈州波特兰市，Vague女士带回了300种脂肪酶细菌，把这些细菌培养成可以分解塑料。

She identified 20 that produced lipase, and of those three that boasted high levels of the enzyme.

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