Hungry Worms Could Help Solve Plastic Pollution

Support that plastic Modern life is cheap, strong and versatile, however Is difficult to settle And have a serious impact when leaving the environment. Polyethylene, especially the world’s most produced plastic, which is more than 100 million annually distributed. Since it can take decades of decay – and can damage the wildlife in that way and degrades harmfully MicroplasticsMany this is an urgent issue for mankind at disposal.

In 2017, European researchers Discovery A possible solution. The wax moth larvae, commonly known as wax worms, has the ability to break polythene in their bodies. Wax worms are considered as pests since ancient times because they parasites the bees, feed the wax. However, we now know that they spontaneously feed polythene, which has chemically similar structures.

“The worms about 2,5 mm can break the entire polythene bag within 24 hours, though we believe that the co-existent worms with sugars can greatly reduce the number of worms,” ​​said Dr. Brian Cason, a professor at Brandon University in Canada. News releaseThe Casson and his team are researching how these insects can help fight plastic pollution. “The biological process and consequences of fitness associated with plastic biodgradation are the main topic of using wax worms for large -scale plastic remedies,” he said.

In the previous test, Casson and his team Found out Just how wax worms break the polythene. To understand the process of their digestive process, the Cason team followed the metabolism of polythene on wax pests and the metabolism of the insect and the changes in their bowel environment. They found that the wax worm had eaten the polythene, their stools were liquid and had glycol as a byproduct.

But when the bacteria of the insect intestine were suppressed by operating antibiotics, the amount of glycol in their feces was reduced. It has revealed that the polythene is dependent on the germs of the wax worm of the wax worm.

The team also disconnects bacteria from wax worms and then from Sanskrit strains that can survive polythene as their only food source. One of them was a strain AquotobacterWhich survived for more than a year in the laboratory environment and continued to break the polythene. It revealed how the wax worm intestinal plants are visible and the steady and continuous plastic is skilled at breaks.

Yet in reality, when the issue of plastic intake comes, bacteria do not work alone in the gut. When researchers conducted a genetic analysis on insects, they found that plastic fed wax worms showed the expression of fat metabolism and after plastic feeding, wax worms showed signs of increasing body fat properly. Their plastic digestive guts are decorated with bacteria, the larvae can break the plastic and convert them into lipids, which they then store their bodies.

However, only a plastic diet does not result in the long -term survival of wax worms. In their latest tests, the team discovered that wax worms that only eat polyethylene died within a few days and lost a lot of weight. It showed that it is difficult for wax worms to continuously process polyethylene waste. However, researchers believe that creating a food source for their polyethylene means wax worms will be able to maintain healthy functionality in a plastic diet and improve their digestive skills.

Looking forward, the team suggests two strategies for using wax worms to swallow plastic. One is to produce wax worms feeding in polythene diet, when providing their long -term nutrient assistance to survive and then integrate them into the circular economy using themselves to dispose of waste plastic. The other is just to design the wax worm’s plastic degradation path in the lab using microorganisms and enzymes, which creates a means of disposal of plastic that does not require real insects.

On the insect rearing route, an byborn is a large amount of insect biomass-calius larvae which is fed on plastic. They can be possiblely turned into a highly nutritious feed for the aquatic industry, as according to research team data, insects can be a good source of protein for commercial fish.

This story was originally attended Wired Japan And has been translated from Japanese.