![]() This waste seemed safe to use in soil for plants and even crops, the studies said.īeing able to find insects that can safely degrade plastic is critical to potential pollution management because other insects such as cockroaches can also consume plastic, but they have not shown biodegradation, Wu said. Researchers found that mealworms transformed the plastic they ate into carbon dioxide, worm biomass and biodegradable waste. Scientists also paid attention to the mealworms’ overall health and saw larvae that ate a diet subsisting strictly of Styrofoam were as healthy as mealworms eating a normal diet of bran. The research documented 100 mealworms that consumed 34 to 39 milligrams of Styrofoam, which is about the weight of a pill, every day. He added that the findings could help solve the plastic pollution problem affecting the world. This is one of the biggest breakthroughs in environmental science in the past 10 years,” Wu said in an interview with CNN. Inside the mealworm’s gut are microorganisms that are able to biodegrade polyethylene, a common form of plastic, according to new studies published in Environmental Science and Technology by co-authors Professor Jun Yang and his doctorate student Yu Yang of Beihang University, and Stanford University engineer Wei-Min Wu. ![]() Researchers have learned that the mealworm can live on a diet of Styrofoam and other types of plastic. Plastic, long considered nonbiodegradable and one of the biggest contributors to global pollution, might have met its match: The small, brownish, squirmy mealworm. ![]()
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