Abstract. Plastic pollution remains an environmental crisis both locally and globally, and the Philippines' insufficient waste management and significant dependence on single-use plastics generate 2.7 million tons of plastic waste annually. LDPE is commonly used in bottles, garbage bags, plastic gloves, and single-use containers that decompose for up to 1,000 years. Rice (Oryza sativa) stems are discarded as agricultural waste, containing cellulose and hemicellulose, which are essential to act as substrates for solid-state fermentation. Turkey tail (Trametes versicolor) is a fungus capable of producing laccase that can break down chemical structures due to mono-electronic oxidation. This study tests the degrading ability of laccase produced using turkey tail in rice stems as a fermentation medium. Researchers buried LDPE strips (1 x 0.5) inches with initial weights of 0.63 grams and in quintuplicates per set-up, incubating them at 5, 10, and 15 days, respectively. Groups A, B, and C were laccase-treated in each incubation period, while Groups D, E, and F received no treatment. After incubation, LDPE strips were cleaned, weighed, and had a corresponding percentage weight loss of 12.30%, 18.26%, and 30.56% for experimental; 11.11%, 12.30%, and 14.68% were computed for negative control. One-way ANOVA, paired, and independent samples t-tests were performed, setting the alpha value to 0.05 to determine significant differences between set-ups. The ANOVA result showed that 15 days in the experimental set-up had the highest degradation compared to 5 and 10 days of groups, indicating significant differences with a p-value of 3.84E-06. T-tests revealed that Group C significantly differs from all groups, resulting in a p-value of 3.38E-05. Findings suggest that laccase produced by turkey tail cultured on rice stems degraded LDPE. All set-ups degraded LDPE, but the experimental groups demonstrated a higher degradation than the negative control groups. The degradation process is more efficient the longer it is incubated.

Keywords: Plastic pollution; Low-density polyethylene; Rice stems; Turkey tail; Laccase; Plastic degradation.