🃏JokerPlastic-eating insect discovered in Kenya
HomerianSymphonyInstead of releasing a huge number of these insects into trash sites (which isn’t practical)
Try it anyway!
FuglyDuckHmmm… How to create an invasive species in 3…2…1…
AllNewTypeFaceFinally, a clothes moth that can eat polyester
Goodbye built human world !
Back to building with stone, metal, and wood.
As if housing wasn’t expensive enough already.
I have had it with these motherfcking mealworm larvae that are capable of consuming polystyrene on this motherfcking plane!
This is one of those stories that pops up every year and nothing is ever done with it.
Yep. This.
Same thing with reddit “hey there’s a cure for cancer and these ragtag students discovered this which will change the world!”
5 years later
“…”
Mostly because it was found not to be effective in trials, or it had some side effect that made it a bad idea. See thalidomide for an example of what happens when you don’t test properly.
While the ability to counteract styrofoam pollution is of course good, sadly this doesn’t apply to other plastics in general. Some plastics are physically hard or chemically much harder to break than polystyrene (PP, PVC, ABS, anything that it fiber reinforced) .
So, while the worms are nice, one should not hope they can help with other plastics.