# Plastic-eating bacteria

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plastic-eating-bacteria/787904>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 2, 2017, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plastic-eating-bacteria/787904 "2017-06-02T01:32:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\
**Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plastic-eating-bacteria/787904/21 "2017-06-08T05:21:54Z")

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When I first started in the car wash business, reclamated water was (and I presume, still is) a big deal. The system we had was a multi-tank, underground system that operated much like a biological filter in a fish tank, except the “bugs” (as VerWater put it, which I must note has completely changed it’s environmental/business emphasis) would “eat” the by-products of a car wash system, notably the soaps and waxes.

It was a multi-tank system that the owner of the business employed, costing a fortune, with an initial collection tank, an overflow into an “aeration tank” to reduce odor, and then into a couple of underground “biomass” tanks, where we regularly tossed “vitamin bags” into, in order to keep the “bugs” alive. The biomass was a stratified plastic structure that the “bugs” supposedly clung to, “eating” the waste while allowing reclamated water to pass through. It never worked like advertised, we sued and won.

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