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Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution
- kangnkodos 9y agoWhat exactly comes out the other end? Small pieces of plastic?
- zitterbewegung 9y agoReading the article it says that it turns the plastic into Ethelene glycol.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Symbiote 9y ago"The analysis showed the worms transformed the polyethylene into ethylene glycol, representing un-bonded 'monomer' molecules." Moderately toxic, but breaks down in the air in about 10 days. Used in antifreeze. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylene_glycol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylene_glycol
- eeZah7Ux 9y agoIt's a precursor of polyester. Perhaps polyethilene can be recycled into polyester?
- test1235 9y ago"it breaks down in air in about ten days, and in water or soil in a few weeks." That is probably the best bit.
- giarc 9y agoInteresting... is this why I've never heard any issues with the amount of windshield washer fluid that is used? I got through many litres every winter.
- Arizhel 9y agoProbably. The primary complaint I've heard about ethylene glycol is that it smells sweet and it's poisonous, so it attracts animals (esp. dogs and cats) and kills them. It's not highly concentrated in windshield washer fluid, but it is in engine coolant, so sometimes people would leave it out and their dog would drink it and die (and the death was awful IIRC due to the way the poison worked). Years ago, there were some alternative antifreezes offered which used propylene glycol instead: it doesn't attract animals the same way, and has nearly the same (but not quite) antifreeze performance. It seems to have died out though.
- jacquesm 9y agoIt kills people too. Kids, adults poisoning others (or themselves). Bad stuff, better keep it locked away.
- sithadmin 9y agoKills people = bad stuff, keep it locked away is a pretty dangerous, slippery slope.
- jacquesm 9y agoHow so? Sweet smelling liquids that kill and children are not compatible in the same space. That's a pretty good reason to keep your various cleaning stuff out of the reach of toddlers whose need to experiment exceeds their capability to understand.
- Arizhel 9y agoTrue, but isn't this basic common sense? We do exactly the same with other poisonous chemicals in the house: drain cleaner, etc. Of course, most of them aren't sweet-smelling like antifreeze, but you also don't use antifreeze in the house, only in the car. I think the real problem with antifreeze is when people drain their radiators at home and then leave the old antifreeze out, either because they're too lazy to put it in a sealed container right away, or because they're letting it evaporate instead of figuring out how to dispose of it properly. Then, usually, some animal comes across it (and is attracted by the smell).
- coldcode 9y agoPlastics are mostly fairly simple molecules but long chains. I wonder how many variants these worms can eat?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- masterponomo 9y agoPlasturds(tm)
- nnutter 9y agoThree orders of magnitude greater than previously known plastic eating bacteria.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoWould be good to have plastic waste broken down, but be careful not to take down our whole civilization with it. Almost everything today is made out of plastic...
- nkrisc 9y agoIn many post-apocalyptic works of fiction it's a disease that wipes out much of humanity; what if instead it was a bacteria or pest that rapidly consumes all our plastic that causes civilization to collapse?
- Asooka 9y agoWe've been building things out of wood for a long time and wood is a food source to plenty of organisms. If that was going to make civilization collapse, it wouldn't have risen in the first place.
- castis 9y agoYes but wood has a pre-existing cycle already in place. Plastic hasn't existed for as long as wood has. If a new microbe or whatever evolves to feed on plastic and becomes widespread, it would certainly be a new experience for us.
- weberc2 9y agoI think material science has advanced enough that in 99% of cases, we could find some other suitable replacement (e.g., glass, aluminum, cloth, leather), albeit at a higher cost (although perhaps lower when you account for environmental impact). I'm guessing the remaining 1% of cases are in medicine or some other advanced science.
- nkrisc 9y agoI'm very well aware of that. I was thinking of a fictional scenario. Also, our modern electronics are not made of wood, many have plastic components.
- sosuke 9y ago"To confirm it wasn't just the chewing mechanism of the caterpillars degrading the plastic, the team mashed up some of the worms and smeared them on polyethylene bags, with similar results." A disturbing but effective way to test the hypothesis.
- leoreeves 9y agoYeah, pretty horrible.
- orik 9y agoWhy is this horrible?
- ComradeTaco 9y agoI think he felt bad about the caterpillars being mashed up.
- f4rker 9y agoLife is not fair, never has been, never will be.
- scandox 9y agoGrand. We're off the hook then. No need to attempt to make it any fairer. Phew!
- lexicality 9y agoShe was going to kill them anyway, they're a virulent pest.
- 3131s 9y ago> virulent pest Humans are also by any measure really.
- Clanan 9y ago"A chance discovery occurred when one of the scientific team, Federica Bertocchini, an amateur beekeeper, was removing the parasitic pests from the honeycombs in her hives. The worms were temporarily kept in a typical plastic shopping bag that became riddled with holes." What a great accident.
- jacquesm 9y agoThe history of science is full of such accidents, the discovery Penicillin being one of the most famous. http://www.kidsdiscover.com/quick-reads/penicillin-found-functional-fungus/ http://www.kidsdiscover.com/quick-reads/penicillin-found-fun...
- cubano 9y agoI've always been amazed that Shockley's discovery of the transistor was also by accident... https://books.google.com/books?id=mykDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA80&lpg=PA80&dq=shockley+transistor+accident&source=bl&ots=zzOU1geWEU&sig=cBOQp3vLwM1UelVBs2mfjK4pFlU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwioy-qI7b3TAhWGi1QKHfJiCYoQ6AEIZjAJ#v=onepage&q=shockley%20transistor%20accident&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=mykDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA80&lpg=P...
- booleandilemma 9y ago"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'" Isaac Asimov
- merraksh 9y agoA less important result for mankind, but still by accident: the microwave oven. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven#Discovery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven#Discovery
- smueller1234 9y agoMaybe the antithesis to the discovery of antibiotics is the mostly accidental discovery of Tabun: "In January 1937, Schrader observed the effects of nerve agents on human beings first-hand when a drop of tabun spilled onto a lab bench." (Wikipedia) I think that one might stand out somewhat since I'd expect most accidental advances to be helpful to humanity. Or maybe I'm just an optimist. :)
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- s0rce 9y agoWhat is new here compared to the linked paper from 3 years ago? https://phys.org/news/2014-12-gut-bacteria-worm-degrade-plastic.html https://phys.org/news/2014-12-gut-bacteria-worm-degrade-plas...
- maverick_iceman 9y agoLink to the original paper: http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(17)30231-2 http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(17)3...
- ourmandave 9y agoThere's a new Godzilla movie coming in 2019 which is supposed to be a series that revisits all the classic monsters. Perhaps this could be the new Mothra original story.
- snappyTertle 9y agoNext story: Caterpillars die from plastic poisoning :(
- ars 9y agoIt makes sense that eventually things would eat plastic. Lignin (wood) and cellulose are pretty tough to break down, but there are things that eat them. Plastic fundamentally (chemically) is made of the same stuff as wood, just in a different arrangement of atoms, and releases energy when decomposed. So it seems quite reasonable that there would be things that can eat it. I think the plastic pollution we are seeing right now is a temporary thing - soon enough there will a large enough population of plastic eaters that it will no longer be a problem. (We should avoid plastics that have chlorine in them though, except where needed. PVC is the most common example of a plastic like this.)
- Ultramax 9y agoI think of a blender. Eventually something is going to be found that breaks up pesky combos. Long molecule chains in plastics seem like they would be easy. I guess it takes the right blender to chop it up! I also imagine a small caterpillar-sized blender involved. Now I need a smoothie.
- xutopia 9y agoI forget where I heard or read this but for something like millions of years wood and other plant materials was not broken down by anything at all as there were no animals to eat away at them.
- neikos 9y agoThat's the carboniferous period! [1] And it went on for about 60 Million years which seems an unfathomable timespan. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboniferous https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboniferous
- baq 9y agoyeah, imagine all the dead trees that basically don't decompose because nothing can eat them. that'd be a sight to behold.
- 9y ago
- fenwick67 9y agoI am skeptical that any sort of bacteria/insect based plastic decomposition project will address the problems with plastic waste. The biggest problem with plastic is not with the products that make it into the landfill, where bacteria could be used. The problem is with what happens when they don't make it into a landfill, and they end up as basically permanent pollutants in the water.
- tuna-piano 9y agoI, for one, have never understood the problem with landfills. There's tons of unused space left, and landfills take up a tiny fraction of that. Who cares if we make a trash hill somewhere and styrofoam sits there for a million years?
- mod 9y agoOne of the better solutions, but nobody wants a landfill near them. They're disgusting.
- Neliquat 9y agoVisit one sometime, they are quite clean actually.
- hutzlibu 9y agowith plants on top after a while (and sealed properly) ...
- graphitezepp 9y agoDecent number of golf courses got built over landfills. Don't have to be disgusting when we are done filling.
- dmix 9y agoIn a small town my parents live in they opened a park with a large hill, originally landfill, and the kids tobaggon on it every year. One of the most popular destinations in the town during winter. So agreed it's not all bad and destructive.
- jogjayr 9y agoThis is the best news I've heard all month! The levels of abraded plastic in our water have gone up steadily over the past half century. While not so much of an immediate threat as rising CO2 levels, it's still something we'll have to contend with eventually. Not to mention the eyesore that is plastic waste. If they can make this work at industrial scale it will really be something!
- ensiferum 9y agoA typical round about way for human civilization. Since plastic is an environmental problem a logical solution would have been not to produce and use it. Or at least manage its lifetime better. But of course the industry doesn't care about cleaning up since there's no money there.
- jeffdavis 9y agoOn what basis do you claim that your solution is logical, but using a caterpillar is not?
- ensiferum 9y agoIf something is a an environmental problem which do you think is better. a) not create the problem in the first place b) start creating a solution to the environmental problem you created
- cokeandsympathy 9y agoIs the problem posed to the environment from plastics greater than the human benefit from their use?
- titojankowski 9y agoI bet YC or IndieBio would jump at a project like this, great startup potential. Scaling up enzymes ftw! Anyone interested? IndieBio, $250k seed investment: http://indiebio.co/companies/ http://indiebio.co/companies/
- dmix 9y agoSounds like something littered with government regulations and patents. I stay away from anything bio for that reason. Hopefully this one finds some motivated individuals who can take it to industrial scale though.
- titojankowski 9y agoI imagine most government regulations (i.e. FDA) would apply to pharmaceuticals or medicines. Since this isn't being ingested (FDA) or grown in a field (EPA), I would think it's ok. What did you have in mind?
- jayeshsalvi 9y agoAre they sure it doesn't shit plastic back?
- dghughes 9y agoNow we're going to end up with plastic butterflies.
- pcrh 9y agoFrom Very Hungry Caterpillars.
- egwynn 9y agoFile under “Diet of Worms”
- pc2g4d 9y agoOne day, landfills are vibrant ecosystems that completely break down whatever is placed inside them. As a compost pile today is to plant waste, a landfill one day could be to plastic, glass, metal, styrofoam, etc. We just need to save the planet long enough that evolution can run its course and some lifeforms start taking advantage of all the energy locked inside our "waste".
- freeflight 9y ago> We just need to save the planet long enough that evolution can run its course and some lifeforms start taking advantage of all the energy locked inside our "waste". You realize evolution works in timeframes that are like really really long? On an evolutional timescale 2000 years is pretty much nothing, to us humans it's pretty much our whole modern history of massively polluting this planet. The pace with which we are changing this planet is way too fast for evolution to keep up with it. If changes to the environment are so fast and so radical then no living thing has time to adapt, they will be extinct before having any chance at adaption.
- Houshalter 9y agoWell that's a very long time for animals yes. Bacteria reproduce as fast as every half hour. In that 2000 years, that's 35 million generations of bacteria. You can go through a thousand generations in 3 weeks. And every landfill has hundreds of trillions of them. Constantly mutating and competing for resources.
- freeflight 9y agoIf life on Earth would only consist of bacteria you would have a point, but there's quite a bit more variety to it.
- macawfish 9y agoThese kinds of things give me tremendous hope.
- myegorov 9y agoIn my experience, common clothes moth[1] or its larvae is also capable of eating through a plastic bag enclosing dry foodstuffs or cereal. Not sure if they're actually digesting it or could survive on the polyethylene diet though. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tineola_bisselliella https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tineola_bisselliella
- eric_h 9y agoThis is somewhat orthogonal to your point, but my cats are also perfectly capable of eating through a plastic bag enclosing dry foodstuffs (left a sealed bag of cat treats on the counter one day, found it chewed through and empty the next). It does seem likely to me, however, that the number of insect species capable of eating through plastics and also breaking the plastic molecules down must surely number greater than one.
- notadoc 9y agoSooo, cover garbage dumps in caterpillars?
- philipkglass 9y agoThis is scientifically very interesting but pretty much orthogonal to solving problems with plastic pollution. The worms can't live in landfills. If you could separate the plastic before landfilling to feed it to worms, then you could just burn whatever separated plastic can't be recycled. (Yes, that releases CO2, but so does having worms and bacteria eat the plastic.) The problem with plastic as waste isn't that it is super-toxic or impossible to destroy. The problem is that it's mixed in with a lot of other kinds of waste. We don't need new ways to destroy polyethylene. We need ways to separate it from mingled waste streams or prevent mingling in the first place.
- omginternets 9y agoArguably, you could breed worms in a landfill, provided the detritus weren't packed so tightly; Living creatures are usually pretty good at finding foodstuffs among non-edibles.
- justifier 9y agoDo you have sources? The paper cited in the article only tangentially talks about byproducts: > The most frequent hydrocarbon bond is the CH2–CH2, as in PE (Figure S1B). Although the molecular details of wax biodegradation require further investigation, it seems likely that the C–C single bond of these aliphatic compounds is one of the targets of digestion. Which seems to imply methylene(o) as the byproduct? Also burning plastic releases more than just CO2: > The most dangerous emissions can be caused by burning plastics containing organoch- lor-based substances like PVC. When such plastics are burned, harmful quantities of dioxins, a group of highly toxic chemicals are emitted. Dioxins are the most toxic to the human organisms. (i) (o) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylene_(compound) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylene_(compound) (i) http://www.wecf.eu/cms/download/2004-2005/homeburning_plastics.pdf http://www.wecf.eu/cms/download/2004-2005/homeburning_plasti...
- philipkglass 9y agoYes, the combustion of PVC and other halogenated hydrocarbons can produce dioxins. This worm digests polyethylene, a halogen-free hydrocarbon that does not produce dioxins even if burned. The article says "The analysis showed the worms transformed the polyethylene into ethylene glycol, representing un-bonded 'monomer' molecules." Methylene itself is an extremely reactive species that cannot be isolated outside of exotic conditions such as trapping in a frozen noble gas matrix. Ethylene glycol has a short environmental half-life and is oxidized to simple compounds like CO2 and H2O by a variety of processes: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11302583 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11302583 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gordon_Craig/publication/279958104_Fate_effects_and_potential_environmental_risks_of_ethylene_glycol_A_review/links/55b3a32708aed621de010185/Fate-effects-and-potential-environmental-risks-of-ethylene-glycol-A-review.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gordon_Craig/publicatio...
- pehtis 9y agoLooks like this has been know for years... http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es504038a http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es504038a http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/plastic-loving-bacteria-worms-gut-could-help-break-down-our-pollution-problem-180953528/ http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/plastic-loving-bact... http://news.stanford.edu/pr/2015/pr-worms-digest-plastics-092915.html http://news.stanford.edu/pr/2015/pr-worms-digest-plastics-09...
- rmason 9y agoThere's already a much better solution to deal with plastic pollution, a naturally degradable material made from corn. We heavily subsidize both wind power and solar. We even still subsidize gasohol even though it doesn't produce the environmental benefits we first thought that it did. But we don't subsidize degradable plastic made from corn which isn't used widely because it costs a few cents more than plastic made from oil. That has never made any sense to me.
- riskable 9y agoYou are grossly oversimplifying the issues. You're referring to Polylactic Acid (PLA) which is made from corn and biodegradable. Except it only biodegrades when eaten by bacteria that only lives in soil. Meaning: If plastic made from PLA ends up in waterways, the oceans, etc it won't degrade there and actually just breaks down into smaller parts creating the exact same sort of problem as microbeads (except PLA doesn't last nearly as long as other plastics regardless). The other problem is that bioplastics have lower glass transition temperatures than, say, PET or ABS which is what most plastic products are made from. So you're not going to be using PLA in a car dashboard, for example since it would deform rather quickly on a hot summer's day. "But there's high-temperature PLA now!" Yes, yes there is. You know how they make it "high temperature"? By adding fossil oil-based chemicals to the polymer. This process results in PLA that leaves residues after degrading. It's similar to "wood fill" or "bronze fill" filament in that a certain percentage of it is PLA whereas the rest is the usual does-not-break-down-ever stuff. Better? Yes. A long-term solution? Not really. ...and for reference, we do subsidize bioplastics to the tune of billions of dollars every year: https://farm.ewg.org/progdetail.php?fips=00000&progcode=corn https://farm.ewg.org/progdetail.php?fips=00000&progcode=corn PLA and most other bioplastics are made from corn husks. "Wait: I thought it was pretty much all made from corn?" Nope! There's a teeny tiny percentage of bioplastics made from algae. Now there's the future!
- Houshalter 9y agoSubsidies to corn farmers don't go to bioplastic producers. Corn husks aren't exactly a scarce resource and would otherwise be left rotting in the field.
- partycoder 9y agoReminds me of the nylon-eating bacteria discovered in the 70s in Japan. It generates an enzyme that digests nylon (nylonase). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylon-eating_bacteria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylon-eating_bacteria
- namuol 9y agoAre there any efforts to use computation to discover possible enzymes to solve problems like this?
- ajarmst 9y agoOh, yeah, I know how this ends. A year from now, when we're chest-deep in caterpillars, you're going to offer to sell us some caterpillar-eating birds...
- djsumdog 9y agoWe already have troubled bee populations throughout the world too. I could also see us getting rids of insane amounts of plastic bags (boo-yea!) and then losing all bee pollinating crops (e.g. Almonds) as colonies collapse (boo-nah?)
- accountyaccount 9y agoIf I have to choose one of these: * almonds * plastic bags * bees RIP the planet.
- ams6110 9y agoThe caterpillars are infected with the Andromeda strain, evidently.
- tossaway322 9y agoYet another reason to buy a M1911 instead of a Glock: Range Instructor: "Mr. Johnson, where's your sidearm? Mr. Johnson: "I'm sorry sir, the caterpillars ate it!" But seriously folks, this may turn out to be a problem. I already have ants eating the plastic in my house's wiring. "'Crazy' Ants, New Invasive Species, Destroys Electric Wiring, Unfazed By Conventional Pesticides": http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/10/crazy-ants-invasive-species-destroys-electric-wiring_n_3415153.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/10/crazy-ants-invasive... This situation is getting out of hand. We need worm- and insect-resistant plastics, obviously!
- smithkl42 9y agoIf there's so much plastic in the ocean, and if it's (obviously) possible for something to evolve in such a way that it can use plastic for nutrition - it seems like we just need to wait a bit, and we'll get some bacteria or weird fish or something like that to solve our floating garbage problem for us. No?
- virmundi 9y agoYou're right. Unfortunately this also means our non garbage plastics are at risk. For example there is a fungus that converts cloth and similar trash to fuel. It also was a major problem in WWII. https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/C8ED057F-D32E-34B5-4DF78025550EB35B/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/C8ED057F-...
- accountyaccount 9y agoi have traveled back in time to warn you that in the future we have too many caterpillars
- jfoutz 9y agoOnce a bacteria evolves that has a taste for plastics, we might have some trouble. It's probably not a very energy dense food source, but abs burns pretty well. There's some power there
- buschtoens 9y agoI'm not a chemist, but I find it really interesting that some enzymes seem to be so versatile that they can destroy chemical bonds they did not originally evolve for.
- olleromam91 9y agoSo what do they poop it out as? Something less pollutant than plastic?
- DrScump 9y agoThe paper: http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(17)30231-2 http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(17)3...
- chicob 9y agoIsn't this a terrible idea in the large scale? By allowing animals to eat plastic, won't their metabolism release CO2 to the atmosphere through respiration? Plastic has lots of carbon. Isn't this the same as burning some plastic and saying 'plants can eat it now', just without the direct emissions? In the small scale, it can solve some local problems. But in the larger scale, shouldn't we just bury plastic deep underground? Of convert it to fuel in substitution of further fossil fuel extraction?