Polyurethane is a plastic widely used, for example, in shoes, furniture, car seats, footballs and cosmetic products. It is difficult to break down as waste – especially in the low-oxygen environment of a landfill. In 2011, biologists discovered a fungus in the Amazon that is able to do precisely that: Pestalotiopsis microspora  is the first known organism able to decompose polyurethane. However, the mushroom spurns other plastics, such as PVC. There are, however, a great number of other, in part still unresearched, types of fungi that lead scientists world-wide reason to hope that further plastic-degrading organisms can be found among them.