Posted on 01/24/2020 11:17:13 AM PST by nickcarraway
A new study has found the worms excrete plastic and its toxic additives with no residue in their bodies.
The humble mealworm might be able to help with our plastic problem. These tiny insects are commonly raised for animal feed and are slowly entering the human diet as a more ethical, low-carbon form of protein. They are known to eat almost anything, including plastic, but researchers from Stanford University wanted to see what would happen when mealworms were given polystyrene foam containing toxic fire retardant chemicals. Building on earlier research, they were curious about whether the chemicals would remain in their bodies or get excreted.
Polystyrene foam (Styrofoam is a trademarked variety) is notoriously difficult and expensive to recycle, due to its low density and bulkiness. It also uses large quantities of fire retardants; an estimated 25 million metric tons of hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) were added to polystyrene foam in 2015 alone. These chemicals are persistent in the environment and "can have significant health and environmental impacts, ranging from endocrine disruption to neurotoxicity. Because of this, the European Union plans to ban HBCD, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is evaluating its risk."
Enter the industrious mealworm, which was able to excrete the polystyrene it ate as partially degraded fragments and carbon dioxide. The fire retardant chemicals came out, too: "With it, they excreted the HBCD – about 90 percent within 24 hours of consumption and essentially all of it after 48 hours." The researchers said the mealworms ingesting HBCD-laced polystyrene were just as healthy as the ones eating a normal diet, as were the farmed shrimp that were fed those plastic- or non-plastic-eating mealworms. Lead study author Anja Malawi Brandon said, "This is definitely not what we expected to see. It's amazing that mealworms can eat a chemical additive without it building up in their body over time."
This does not mean we should become complacent and keep adding fire retardants to polystyrene foam, or even continue using polystyrene foam. Both need to be phased out and replaced with easier-to-recycle or -biodegrade alternatives, preferably reusables. Brandon says it's a wake-up call, despite the mealworms' surprising ability. "It reminds us that we need to think about what we're adding to our plastics and how we deal with it."
>>These tiny insects are commonly raised for animal feed and are slowly entering the human diet as a more ethical, low-carbon form of protein.
NOPE
Our billion dollar marxist overlords aren’t eating bugs and I refuse to.
Interesting. Unless I’m misunderstanding this article, it sounds like the excretions are still plastic/HBCD, but are “partially degraded,” which doesn’t tell us much. So, environmentally, they may not be helping much, but in terms of the volume the waste takes up, I would guess that is reduced.
Yeh well, humans will eat tree bark if they are sufficiently starving, too!
I just burn it.
Interesting, but the actual toxic chemical hbdc is not being broken down significantly just not absorbed by the mealworms so still need to deal with that chemical
Sounds like Styrofoam is biodegradable. Who knew?!
not kosher, but either are the shrimp they are fed to. Why not?, shrug.
Looks like the bugs did not assimilate the polystyrene. Also, as another poster noticed, the polystyrene does not appear to have been changed chemically. So it will not degrade chemically, but it will break apart into small particles. That doesn’t help anything at all.
Hold the Nobel Prize for a while.
Can you still feed the mealworms to your reptile pets?
Thinking of establishing a colony of mealworms. May have to check this out.
:)
I bet it made the works gay.
[[Yeh well, humans will eat tree bark if they are sufficiently starving, too!]]
Indians who ate bark to survive in the Adirondack mountains were called ‘atirú:taks’ - translated ‘those who eat trees’ or ‘tree eaters’
Thus the well known Adirondack term, Barkeater.
They excrete carbon dioxide. Quick, call Greta!
They make great live bait if you like fishing for bream, bluegill, crappie, etc. Wacky-rig a snelled #8 or #10 hook, tie it off with some 4 or 6 lb. test mono on a 10’ or 12’ crappie pole, and flip it into cover. If you can find a good spawning bed in a shady area in the spring, the males guarding it will absolutely smash them, even if they’re floating on top of the water.
Styrofoam is our friend.
It was originally invented as a highly efficient insulator needed in the first hydrogen bomb.
IIRC, they were the H’Oakee tribe.
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