**7. Conclusions**

Bioplastics are dramatically favored over oil-based plastics due to their ability to degrade. The use of such natural polymers would help counteract the current accumulation of standard nonbiodegradable polymers in the global environment. Bioplastics have many applications, such as packaging materials, biomedical implants, drug delivery systems, and biofuels. The screening of the indigenous bacteria in the environmental samples is the first key step on the way of the selection of bioplastic-producing organisms. In this study, the conventional chemical, molecular biological, and physical methods were successfully applied for the screening of the environmental bacteria-producing PHAs, biopolymers that can be used to produce bioplastics. Twenty bacterial strains have tested positive for *phaC* genes using the PCR method and/or the Sudan Black B, Nile Blue, and Nile Red staining methods. The PHAs were extracted from these bacterial strains and characterized using the FTIR method. The main FTIR spectral peaks for the PHAs extracted from 19 studied bacterial isolates resemble the peaks for the PHAs isolated from PHA-producing bacterial strain (+ve) that was used as a positive-control strain, indicating the presence of the PHA functional groups in the samples. Diagnostic biochip was first time explored as a fast method for primary screening of PHA-producing microorganisms in environmental samples. The hybridization results showed that the designed probes successfully detected the *phaC* genes, which covered three classes of PHA synthase in the environmental samples. Class I resides in *Cupriavidus* sp.; classes I and II are detected in *Pseudomonas* sp., and class III are found in the *Synechococcus* and *Burkholderia* spp. The bacterial composition in the environmental samples revealed the frequently encountered *Synechococcus*, *Pseudomonas*, and *Cupravidus* species, well-known PHA producers. Moreover, the use of biochips and staining procedures for the detection of biopolymers-producing bacteria will allow the screening of microorganisms for novel PHA production pathways.

*Bioplastics against Microplastics: Screening of Environmental Bacteria for Bioplastics… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109756*
