Waxworms can eat plastic, poop profit and possibly save the planet

A recent study from Brandon University, led by Dr. Bryan Cassone, reveals that waxworms—the caterpillars of the greater wax moth—can rapidly degrade polyethylene, the most common plastic worldwide. Remarkably, about 2,000 waxworms can consume an entire polyethylene bag within 24 hours, a process that normally takes decades or centuries in the environment. The research shows that waxworms metabolize the plastic into lipids stored as body fat, similar to how humans store fat from food. However, an all-plastic diet is lethal to the caterpillars, causing mass loss and death within days. Cassone suggests that co-supplementing their diet with other food sources could sustain and even enhance their health, enabling mass rearing. The implications of this discovery are twofold: waxworms could be farmed on a supplemented polyethylene diet to help reduce plastic waste as part of a circular economy, or scientists could isolate and replicate the enzymes responsible for plastic degradation in laboratory or industrial settings