Abstract
Formerly, synthetic polymer has been looked upon as not degraded by microbes. However, recently, some kinds of synthetic polymer have been turned out to be degraded.
For example, oligomeric polyethylene easily suffers microbial degradation ; even high molecular weight polymer suffers the degradation in poly (vinyl alcohol) and aliphatic polyester ; and poly (ethylene glycol) suffers the degradation depending on the conditions. Based on such examples, the relation between the chemical structure and the microbial degradability are discussed, and the prospects are mentioned from an environmental point of view.
