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Foam-Eating Worms May Offer Solution To Mounting Waste

Posted by samzenpus on from the I-for-one-welcome-our-new-foam-eating-overlords dept.

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.

12 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. CO2 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Good, because if there's one thing we need, it's more atmospheric CO2.

    1. Re:CO2 by DrXym · · Score: 3, Informative

      I assume anyone going to bother of doing this would feed the output from the worm farm into a secondary chamber filled with algae or bacteria which would consume the CO2 to produce fuel or something along those lines.

    2. Re:CO2 by donaggie03 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Would you prefer they shit diamonds? Being serious here, but you do know that polystyrene foam is made from refined oil, yes? Once the oil is extracted, you can either A) leave it in a tank. B: make it into something and bury it into the ground. C) Covert it back into CO2 via burning or organic methods.

      What would you prefer is done with the existing polystyrene foam out there?

      The obvious answer is leave it buried in the ground. Anthropogenic global warming is caused by us taking carbons that have been locked away underground in the form of fossil fuels and releasing them into the atmosphere. If we use those fossil fuels but keep the carbon locked up or re-entered into the ground instead of the atmosphere, we wouldn't have nearly as much trouble with all the greenhouse effects. We'd have another problem in the form of mountains of waste we don't know what to do with, but that's a different discussion.

      --
      Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
    3. Re:CO2 by idontgno · · Score: 3, Funny

      So, your answer is "it's not landfill waste, it's carbon sequestration."

      Funny. Every silver lining comes in a dark cloud.

      --
      Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
  2. Re:burn it by whyloginwhysubscribe · · Score: 3, Informative

    Because of the toxic chemicals which are released when it is burnt - http://www.ehow.co.uk/info_831... - although this article says that if you burn it hot enough it is safe - it doesn't say *how* safe...

  3. Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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!

  4. Re:Question for the chemists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Recycling centers don't like dealing with Napalm B, and your government would prefer you don't have it around also.

  5. That's all good and well. by idbeholda · · Score: 3, Informative

    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?

  6. Re:Frost by VernonNemitz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It seems to me that someone hasn't paid enough attention to certain science-fictional warnings. I can't be the only one who has read that book!

  7. By all means by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Please spread polystyrene eating bacteria indiscriminately. Because it's not used as light structural support in anything at all.

  8. The EPA should tighten up the limits by AndyKron · · Score: 3, Funny

    The EPA should tighten up the limits on meal worm CO2 emissions, and force them to put more in their feces.

  9. That CO2 was locked in that plastic by mpercy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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!