Worm Food Win Win

Good News Good Planet

For more delicious news, go to www.GoodNewsGoodPlanet.com, and scroll to bottom for more ways to find the feel good stuff!* A Worm Food Win-Win As plastics and other non-biodegradable materials pile up in landfills and in our oceans, scientists are looking for new solutions. And solutions that often are already in our mists, are the most promising. Studies at Stanford University have shown that meal worms are able to eat Styrofoam and the enzymes in their guts break it down into something compostable. Inspired by this research, four students at Ellisburg High School in Washington state decided to conduct their own experiments, this time using superworms. These dark beetle larvae are bigger than meal worms and remain larvae for up to a year if kept with other superworms. These superworms ate a lot faster and they were twice as efficient. The superworms appeared to stay healthy and expelled the remaining styrofoam in their waste. So far, plants grown with this waste showed no differences from those grown in other composts. Though further testing is still needed, these results were a surprise to the Stanford plastic researchers as well. As for the student team at Ellisburg High School, the experiment won them first place in the ‘Iron Food, Energy and Water Challenge at Alaska Airlines Imagine Tomorrow competition’, and team members were awarded $300 each. Meanwhile, researchers continue to examine how insects and small animals can solve the global plastic pollution problem both on land and in the sea. They aim to discover whether microorganisms within meal worms and other insects in their larval stage can safely biodegrade substances such as polypropylene, microbeads and bioplastics. This knowledge will lead to the engineering of more powerful enzymes for plastic degradation and guide manufacturers in the design of polymers that do not accumulate in the environment or in food chains in the first place And that's a win-win for all of us - one tiny bug bite at a time. #### *Hungry for more of the Good Stuff? Search "Good News Good Planet" on YouTube, Instagram, Patreon, Alexa and wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.