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by ibgames

EARTHDATE: April 30, 2017

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REAL LIFE NEWS: PLASTIC-EATING CATERPILLARS COULD HELP CLEAN UP PLASTIC POLLUTION

by Hazed

A caterpillar that chews on plastic bags has been discovered by researchers, and it could help to deal with the problem of plastic bag waste that pollutes the environment.

The caterpillar is the larvae of a moth Galleria melionella. It eats the wax in bee hives, and experiments show that it can break down the chemical bonds in plastic in a similar way.

The plastic-eating properties of the caterpillar were discovered by accident. The larvae are bred to be sold as premium fish bait, but in the wild they live on beeswax, much to the annoyance of bee keepers.

Frederica Bertocchini, an amateur beekeeper who is also a scientist at the Spanish National Research Council, was clearing an infestation of the larvae from one of her hives. She put the unwanted caterpillars into a plastic bag, but then found they simply ate their way out.

“I went back to the room where I had left the worms and I found that they were everywhere,” she said. “The bag was full of holes.”

This chance discovery led her to team up with scientists at Cambridge University. In tests, they discovered that 100 worms can devour 92 milligrams of polythene in just 12 hours. That appetite for plastic could be put to good use, tackling the plastic bag mountain that gets dumped in landfill and then takes 100 to 400 years to degrade – but given that a plastic bag weighs about 5.5 grams, you’d need an enormous number of worms to make inroads on the waste.

So how could this plastic-munching behaviour be harnessed? Well, just releasing loads of the larvae might not be the answer. We don’t know yet if they are using the plastic as food, or just chewing through it in order to escape. More tests are needed to find out if they use the plastic as an energy source.

Another option is to identify the enzymes that the critters produce that let them dissolve plastic. The genes for these could then be added to bacteria, or into marine organisms called phytoplankton, so they can degrade plastics in the wild. However, there are strict regulations around the release of genetically modified organisms in the environment.

Besides, there is always a danger that whichever method is chosen, the plastic-munching entities could turn their attention away from waste plastic to, say, plastic wiring or other items made from plastic that we don’t want to see damaged. Science fiction shows just how devastating that could be!

So great care needs to be taken with this. Still, if those problems can be avoided, it sounds very promising.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/apr/24/plastic-munching-worms-could-help-wage-war-on-waste-galleria-mellonella

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