A paper came out recently showing the common mealworms could eat, survive on and break down styrofoam. I decided to test this with a different species to see if this is something more insects could do. And sure enough they can! Could be a great way to deal with our plastics, feed them to the bugs!
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Poster Comment:
You can hear their little mandibles crunching away ;) I just hope this is practical on a large scale -- getting even 1/10 of the nonwhites in Amurrica to separate their trash? Not the easiest.
#1: Horse To: NeoconsNailed (#0)
Try this experiment with the maggots of Black Soldier Flies but with other toxic waste. There is an entire industry built around raising these maggots to eat waste and the feed the adult flies to chickens. Corn is becoming too expensive to feed to animals even if you save 25% by sprouting the corn for 2 days before feeding your animals.
Horse posted on 2019-08-15 23:36:28 Reply Private Reply
#2: NeoconsNailed To: Horse (#1)
The 20th century was the plastic century. We boomers grew up in the magic plastic age..... but all told, considering what it's doing to marine life alone, it may be the worst idea ever developed. I fear that some generations down the road people will regard it as so much organic asbestos :-s
NeoconsNailed posted on 2019-08-16 00:31:37 Reply Private Reply
#3: Horse To: NeoconsNailed (#2)
Horse posted on 2019-08-16 01:17:17 Reply Private Reply
#4: NeoconsNailed To: Horse (#3)
Oh dear, do the mealworms need to be given an antibiotic to keep at it?
en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Mealworm#In_waste_disposal
And of course "After 3 to 30 days, depending on environmental conditions such as temperature, it emerges as an adult beetle" :-(
NeoconsNailed posted on 2019-08-16 11:57:58 Reply Private Reply