Plastic pollution is one of the most serious environmental issues on earth. Annually, human release trillion of plastic wastes into the ocean without breaking down the plastic. I have seen a lot of documentary films talk about how marine animals and seabirds are being injured and killed by plastic pollution. Fortunately, scientist Dr. Federica Bertocchini and her colleagues from Cantabria in Spain have discovered an insect that can digest plastic bags.
Dr. Federica Bertocchini, who works at the Institute of Biomedicine and Biotechnology of Cantabria in Spain, is a beekeeper in her free time. She accidentally discovered the plastic-eating worms while she was cleaning beehives at her home. She found that the beehives were infested by caterpillar larvae of Galleria mellonella, commonly known as the wax worm.
Waxworm – photo from Wikimedia Commons
“The wax worms are a plague for beekeepers; I put the worms in a plastic bag and after a while, I realized that the bag was riddled with holes and the worms were all around in my flat,” said Bertocchini while she was in an interview with Roechling Stiftung.
The discovery made Bertocchini realize a possibility of plastic biodegradation by using a natural agent. Then Bertocchini and her research team decided to investigate whether if the wax worms actually degraded the plastic bag, or they just physically chewed it for escape. They gathered some wax worms in a plastic bag. After 12 hours, they noticed that the worms obviously reduced the mass of plastic bag. Then a further testing showed that the wax worm chemically converted the plastic into other materials, which proved that a wax worm is a possible approach for biodegradation.
Watch how waxworm breaks down the plastic bag from the following YouTube video:
Why is wax worm able to degrade the plastic bags? Bertocchini and her team conclude that may be due to the place where the wax worm lives: the beehives. Wax worm consumes beeswax and honey as food, and beeswax has a similar chemical structure as plastic. Thus, the wax worm can chemically digest the plastic. A more specific explanation of their research can be found in their paper in Current Biology.
The question now is whether if scientists can use wax worms to solve plastic pollution. In my opinion, it is irresponsible for scientists to directly use them in our environment. Although wax worms can break down plastic bags in a more natural way, wax worms are enemy to bees. No one can ensure that wax worms will only digest the plastic wastes, since they may turn to destroy the habitat of bees which will bring more environmental issues to us.
“The idea of actually using the caterpillars never crossed our mind,” says Bertocchini. “They are a plague for the environment, you cannot throw millions of worms in the environment, the equilibrium in nature must be respected.”
-Tina Sun
