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The Caterpillar Larvae 'Plastivores'

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The caterpillar larvae 'plastivores' that consume and metabolize polyethylene

Source: phys.org
Date: 5 March, 2020

A team of researchers at Brandon University has found that greater wax moth caterpillar larvae are "plastivores" that are able to consume and metabolize polyethylene. In their paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the group describes their study of the caterpillars and what they learned about them and their gut microbiome.

Prior research has shown that plastics are becoming a major pollutant. In addition to piling up in landfills, they are also broken down into microplastics, which are polluting the world's oceans. And while there have been some attempts to curb their use, they are still produced and used in abundance in many parts of the world. Thus, scientists have been searching for a way to force such materials to degrade faster—natural degradation takes approximately 100 years. In this new effort, the researchers studied wax moths and their larvae, which are known to invade beehives to eat the honeycombs inside.

The researchers with this new effort had learned of anecdotal evidence that the larvae, which exist as caterpillars, eat low-density polyethylene. To find out if this was true, they obtained multiple caterpillars and fed them a diet of plastic grocery bags. They found that 60 of the caterpillars were able to consume approximately 30 square centimeters of the plastic in a week. They also found that the caterpillars could survive for a week eating nothing but the plastic.

https://phys.org/news/2020-03-caterpillar-larvae-plastivores-consume-metabolize.html
 
The caterpillar larvae 'plastivores' that consume and metabolize polyethylene

Source: phys.org
Date: 5 March, 2020

A team of researchers at Brandon University has found that greater wax moth caterpillar larvae are "plastivores" that are able to consume and metabolize polyethylene. In their paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the group describes their study of the caterpillars and what they learned about them and their gut microbiome.

Prior research has shown that plastics are becoming a major pollutant. In addition to piling up in landfills, they are also broken down into microplastics, which are polluting the world's oceans. And while there have been some attempts to curb their use, they are still produced and used in abundance in many parts of the world. Thus, scientists have been searching for a way to force such materials to degrade faster—natural degradation takes approximately 100 years. In this new effort, the researchers studied wax moths and their larvae, which are known to invade beehives to eat the honeycombs inside.

The researchers with this new effort had learned of anecdotal evidence that the larvae, which exist as caterpillars, eat low-density polyethylene. To find out if this was true, they obtained multiple caterpillars and fed them a diet of plastic grocery bags. They found that 60 of the caterpillars were able to consume approximately 30 square centimeters of the plastic in a week. They also found that the caterpillars could survive for a week eating nothing but the plastic.

https://phys.org/news/2020-03-caterpillar-larvae-plastivores-consume-metabolize.html
We're saved!
 
Actually, the answer to the caterpillars is a -20 C freezer. I know, I work with them.

There was a team at Cambridge who reported on this back in 2017.
https://www.cell.com/current-biolog...m/retrieve/pii/S0960982217302312?showall=true
I was working for a company selling these larvae at that point, and I know the boss had some contact with them. However, the findings of that paper were queried quite quickly - were they just chewing it or actually digesting it? (https://www.cell.com/current-biolog...m/retrieve/pii/S096098221730862X?showall=true) - and it looks like there are a couple of other papers by the Chinese out there on Pubmed, so this idea has been banded around for a couple of years.

In fact, my colleague badgers me every Christmas to give them some tinsel to chew to see if they have glittery poo afterwards, but I have resisted the urge so far.
 
They found that 60 of the caterpillars were able to consume approximately 30 square centimeters of the plastic in a week.
So how many caterpillars does it take to consume 1 ton of shopping bags ?

Simple maths then.
1 million grams in a metric tonne.
A plastic shopping bag typically weighs about 5 grams. So 200,000 bags in a tonne.
An average shopping bag being about 38cm x 46cm gives a surface are of approx 1748sqcm.
So a tonne is 349600000 sqcm of plastic shopping bag.
So 699,200,000 caterpillars would be needed to devour that in a week.


Unfortunately therein lies a problem in itself. A wax moth larva weighs about 150mg, so that many of them would tip the scales at about 104 tonnes.
 
Simple maths then.
1 million grams in a metric tonne.
A plastic shopping bag typically weighs about 5 grams. So 200,000 bags in a tonne.
An average shopping bag being about 38cm x 46cm gives a surface are of approx 1748sqcm.
So a tonne is 349600000 sqcm of plastic shopping bag.
So 699,200,000 caterpillars would be needed to devour that in a week.

Unfortunately therein lies a problem in itself. A wax moth larva weighs about 150mg, so that many of them would tip the scales at about 104 tonnes.
Good point, Trev. One solution might be to find out what enzyme or chemical is involved in breaking down the polyethylene and then manufacture it in large quantities.
 
OK no worries, I'm on it, leave it with me, i'll have the answer by lunchtime tomorrow.
 
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