Plastic Munching Worms
The caterpillar type
Did you know?
Some of the methods used by the scientists in the BBC Radio Drama 5 Years From Now are based on real things!
Waxworms (a type of caterpillar) which normally live in beehives and eat wax, can also survive on polyethylene — the plastic used in shopping bags, etc.
This seems to be down microbes in their guts which help them digest the plastic which is ultimately excreted as glycol, a form of alcohol!
In the lab, 60 waxworms were able to eat more than 30 square centimeters of a plastic bag in less than a week.
The plastic pollution crisis is far too big to simply throw these caterpillars at.
Dr. Bryan Cassone:
“What our research is trying to figure out is how the waxworm and its gut bacteria work together to allow such efficient breakdown of the plastic. Once we figure this out, we can use the information to design better tools to eliminate plastics from our environment.”
“The hope is this information will allow us to develop tools to help get rid of plastic waste without the need for live waxworms, which is likely untenable for large-scale plastic waste removal.”
It all sounded so sci-fi when I was doing my research. I mean come on, a worm that eats plastic and poos booze, how is that real? So, I had to put them in, obviously with my own additions (I’m not a scientist after all).
