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Foam-Eating Worms May Offer Solution To Mounting Waste
ckwu writes: Polystyrene foams—including products like Styrofoam—are rarely recycled, and the materials biodegrade so slowly that they can sit in a landfill for hundreds of years. But a pair of new studies shows that mealworms will dine on polystyrene foam when they can't get a better meal, converting almost half of what they eat into carbon dioxide. In one study, the researchers fed mealworms polystyrene foam and found that the critters converted about 48% of the carbon they ate into carbon dioxide and excreted 49% in their feces. In the second study, the researchers showed that bacteria in the mealworms' guts were responsible for breaking down the polystyrene--suggesting that engineering bacteria might be a strategy for boosting the reported biodegradation.
I have some mealworms upstairs. Should I sprinkle them on the styrofoam pile in the garage that only the landfill will accept locally?
Kid-proof tablet..
Good, because if there's one thing we need, it's more atmospheric CO2.
Why bother with all the hassle of trying to isolate the bacteria then trying to figure out how to grow it on an industrial scale when we could just breed better mealworms -- better in the sense of being able to digest a higher percentage of the styrofoam.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
If we're going to convert it to CO2 anyway, why not simply burn it in the first place? Then we'd get some heat as a bonus, too.
Score:-1, Wrong
polystyrene can be burned cleanly emitting the same amount of CO2 and also be refined through pyrolysis to useful carbohydrate usable as fuel in diesel and gas vehicles.
The only argument for using meal worms is that the Styrofoam is mixed with household waste or in a land fill where it's too dirty to recover.
This is a poor band aid for a failed recycle system!
Not to worry, future generations, possibly even some living now, will be mining our landfills for resources.
--- Keep the choice with the user..
I, for one, welcome our new detrimental polystyrene-eating overlords.
Polystyrene is mostly air. If you dunk it in a solvent like acetone, it dissolves, releasing the air and decreasing to something like 1% its original volume. Why isn't this considered a viable way to deal with polystyrene trash?
"normal" plastic wont break down under typical conditions on Earth so the best thing we can do is change the type of plastic we are using to something that will degrade over a much shorter period of time or can be metabolized by most living things. the good news is we have already invented many variants of plastic that meet this requirement and they have been named bioplastics. why are we still using these plastics that are bad for everyone? it's a simple matter of money and legal [ir]responsibility.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
But congress is notoriously non-biodegradable, and they don't really do much for the environment anyways. At least the garbage attracts flies. Why not start with them first?
I suggest the use of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_toad. What could possibly go wrong?
Those photos set off my trypophobia something chronic.
Mealworm co2 generation FTW!
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Back when I was a kid in Russia we had a big garbage container outside our kindergarden filled to the brim with worms. We threw in the foam that was lying around near by and watched it disolve. Good times.
Please spread polystyrene eating bacteria indiscriminately. Because it's not used as light structural support in anything at all.
The EPA should tighten up the limits on meal worm CO2 emissions, and force them to put more in their feces.
"Scientists seek solution to uncontrolled worm infestation".
The law of unintended consequences is always hiring.
Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
Back in the early nineties I read an article that someone received a patent for a bacteria that when spread across a garbage dump would eat the garbage and its waste would be methanol. Where is that today?
You wouldn't want to put polystyrene with, say, broccoli, because the worms might prefer it and ignore their serving of polystyrene, but if you pair the polystyrene with something less delicious (fiberglass, maybe) then the worms will eat their polystyrene right up.
They still recycle polystyrene into Rastra, but soon genetically engineered bacteria can make your Leed certified house emit CO2.
Styrofoam is just plain nasty! We should make a serious effort to avoid foam containers whenever possible.
Burning that crap is not only going to produce carbon dioxide, but literally dozens(look it up) of nasty petrochemicals which we don't want in the environment. Never do that! Styrofoam placed in garbage containers and landfills takes up a huge volume by weight. We don't want landfills "filling up" any faster than necessary. Other major problems with the landfill idea are that it can easily be scattered by the wind and easily broken into small particles. Therefore, it doesn't stay in landfills and ends up all over the place. It gets into animal digestive systems and ends up in rivers and streams where it eventually goes into the ocean where it is very harmful to marine life as well.
Most places will not take styrofoam for recycling because it is notoriously hard to clean and un-economical to recycle. The UPS store will accept and re-use those styrofoam peanuts if you happen to have some, but that's pretty much the only option.
If these worms can break it down into C02 and (according to the study) excrement that is safe to return to the soil, it would be a HUGE benefit. Still, anyone who is the slightest bit environmentally conscious will avoid this stuff like the plague.
Note: Styrofoam dissolves into an odd sticky substance when mixed with gasoline, so in the rare instance you might need a molotov cocktail, you can put some of that in the mixture.
Polystyrene would keep that CO2 sequestered for what, 1000 years or so? And now they've just released more into the atmosphere with the cow farts and Volkswagen emissions!
What's 404 in Turkish?
It is funny that these articles were so close together. Apparently the science is in and living things will eat shit rather than starve. Valuable research going on here...
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
If you want to convert Styrofoam to CO2, just burn it. But why would you want to do this?
In a landfill, Styrofoam really does not hurt anything.
When will the mealworm-to-SodaStream adapter be ready so we can stop paying inflated prices for CO2?
The interesting study would be, if given the choice between Styrofoam and broccoli, how many kids would choose the Styrofoam?
Wouldn't it be a much more beneficial project if they found a way to convert CO2 into polystyrene. Creating a parasite that eats houses, boats, marina's and refrigerators in order to dump green house gases into the world seems like a bad idea. Why do we hate plastic so much? If the forest floor is covered with plastic, and the plants are growing around it, so what? Sure plastic has some stuff in it that is mildly toxic but its only released when the plastics break down, which is contrary of the argument of the article which states that it doesn't break down. Granite has been around for billions of years but you don't see any one going all "mad scientist" on the granite epidemic that has for generations plagued rock quarry's. Our prejudice towards plastic is mostly cosmetic.
Potting soil and seed starting soil contain fillers like vermiculite to keep the mix light and airy. Polystyrene foam would be a perfect additive.
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