Chemists have turned discarded plastic into raw materials for medicines.

To do this, they needed poorly recyclable polyethylene, catalysts and a fungus. With the help of catalysts and oxygen under pressure, scientists dismantled the garbage into diacids - asperbenzaldehyde, citreovidine and mutilin. They were injected into a strain of the fungus Aspergillus nidulans, which is often used in drug development. Feeding on diacids, in just a week, the microorganism produced a serious amount of antibiotics, statins, immunosuppressants and antifungal drugs.