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2024-11-11

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Plastic-eating insect discovered in Kenya (phys.org)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Not true.

We found that mealworms on the polystyrene-bran diet survived at higher rates than those fed on polystyrene alone.

While the polystyrene-only diet did support the mealworms' survival, they didn't have enough nutrition to make them efficient in breaking down polystyrene.

Many of the ones fed only polystyrene for a month did survive, they just fared poorly as with any organism that’s eating only one substance for an entire month. But they did live, which is pretty impressive.

They have gut bacteria that can break down polystyrene for nutrition. They just can’t eat only polystyrene and nothing else and thrive. It’s mostly an area of research because they want to use the bacteria in processing waste, not that the mealworms are going to be the answer as-is.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 days ago (3 children)

We're going to develop or find some efficient life form to break down plastics quickly. Solve our waste problem. And it's going to get loose into the wild and start breaking down plastics everywhere, uncontrollably. Straight out of Larry Niven's Ringworld series (theirs was a superconductor-eating bug).

Probably not though, that's just science fiction that never happens in reality. The nylon-eating bacteria that naturally evolved found long ago in waste areas never broke out to destroy all nylon. So at least there's an example of it not happening.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I'm confident that it will happen, these things just take time. There's enough energy floating around bound up in plastic polymers, and the chemistry is simple enough, that something will learn to make use of it. 100 years is just way too short in evolutionary time for it to happen on a large scale.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago

Dead on. It happened with trees, and wood is still useful.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Maybe we should be happy it doesn't happen, breaking down all plastics which are currently everywhere would probably result in massive CO2 emissions. That's why I'm always sceptical when these kind of articles appear; it gives some people an excuse to say the overuse of plastics isn't an issue.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

And it's going to get loose into the wild and start breaking down plastics everywhere, uncontrollably.

That's fine, really. Eco problem solved and we need alternatives to plastic (made of oil) in the next few tens of years anyway.