Biodegradation
Methanogenic consortia have been shown to degrade styrene as sole carbon source (Grbić-Galić et al. 1990). In this case styrene degraded to a range of organic intermediates and carbon dioxide. Taking the carbon dioxide figures as a representation of the amount of styrene that had completely degraded to gas as is of interest here, rates of styrene degradation ranged from 0.14 to 0.4 a -1. This is an order of magnitude faster than the most rapid rate of polystyrene degradation identified (Kaplan et al. 1979, Sielicki et al. 1978). It is consistent with the T2GGM polystyrene degradation model (Quintessa and Geofirma 2011b), which considers the rate-limiting step for polystyrene degradation to be the breakup of polystyrene, rather than the degradation of styrene.