Tenebrio molitor, commonly known as a mealworm, especially because of its larval form, could become a human weapon for recycling plastic waste after its discovery by a group of scientists from Stanford University (USA). .) that this tiny worm can survive on a diet of Styrofoam, a non-biodegradable plastic .
For their experiment, the researchers put 100 mealworms in a box filled with Styrofoam and another hundred with their usual diet (based on dead insects, plants, seeds …). The worms ate between 34 and 39 milligrams of this plastic a day , converting half of the Styrofoam into carbon dioxide, as if it were any other food. Most of the remaining plastic was excreted by the worms as biodegraded fragments similar to rabbit poop.
By comparison, the worms that ate plastic were as healthy as those that subsisted on a normal diet, and their droppings appeared to serve as compost for agriculture. This is because the stomach of this worm has certain microorganisms capable of biodegrading the plastic and thus feeding on these synthetic substances without dying in the attempt.
” Our results have opened a new door to solve the global problem of plastic pollution ,” explains Wei-Min Wu, leader of the study, which has been published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology .
