Plastic-eating insect discovered in Kenya
Plastic-eating insect discovered in Kenya
Natural ‘plastic eaters’ could help in the fight against pollution in Africa.
Interesting, but I wonder what they break it down to. Is it completely broken down or do they shit nanoplastics?
At a quick glance they break it down into carbon dioxide at about a 50% consumption rate. The rest is excreted as biomass and degraded fragments (which I gather means shorter polymer chains and oxidation). Sounds really good if it’s true.
They turn into 3-D printers.
Wow just realised i’m technically a 3D printer. Aaand that’s enough internet for today.
And how much of the plastic remains in the food chain when animals eat the worms? This likely isn’t the good news that it appears to be on the surface. I know an old lady who swallowed a fly….
This is one of those stories that pops up every year and nothing is ever done with it.
Yep. This.
Same thing with reddit "hey there's a cure for cancer and these ragtag students discovered this which will change the world!"
5 years later
"............"
Mostly because it was found not to be effective in trials, or it had some side effect that made it a bad idea. See thalidomide for an example of what happens when you don't test properly.
Something eats these insects and then we in turn eat those somethings.
This is not a way to save us from microplastics. Centuries from now that shit will still be in dirt particles all over the world.
The best thing to be done is go back in time 100 years and stop people from making millions of tons of plastic bullshit.
The second best thing is to stop making millions of tons of plastic bullshit.
That entirely depends if the insect or bacteria or fungi turn it into a different chemical.
It'll be exterminated for being "woke" and "caring about climate change"
That's Kentucky not Kenya
We're all plastic eating insects.
And here I’ve been eating plastic insects this whole time like a fool
While the ability to counteract styrofoam pollution is of course good, sadly this doesn't apply to other plastics in general. Some plastics are physically hard or chemically much harder to break than polystyrene (PP, PVC, ABS, anything that it fiber reinforced) .
So, while the worms are nice, one should not hope they can help with other plastics.
On the plus side, this does show that all the plastic we have put into the environment has been a niche energy source just waiting to be exploited.
Now think about all the plastic surface area in the oceans and stuff, I bet there are other things, bacteria and microfauna, which are actively adapting to consume it.
I have had it with these motherfcking mealworm larvae that are capable of consuming polystyrene on this motherfcking plane!