Meet The Plastic-Eating Worms | Planet Fix | BBC Earth Science 

I also noticed the ability of every common household moth worm to eat through plastic and also thought it was just a mechanical chewing.

eat everything in their path? 😨 i hope they dont evolve and grow into 2 meters tall 🤣 its scary :P

Same here. Indian meal moths do this too (as l found to my cost ☹) but l just assumed mechanical chewing.

Because? Scientist.

@@foryol fkn mice will eat plastic(sometimes at least :D)

Plastic ain't the only problem.

@@marcusrobinson1778 it’s a huge one

@@halatiny6537 no way? Really?

I wouldn't be so sure. It is all great if they remained contained where we want them to be. But it is only a matter of time before they accidentally spread everywhere and suddenly car parks are plagued with car eating bugs, warehouses of textiles are destroyed, drones come crashing to the ground, computer farms are destroyed. It is only a matter of time before people start using them as weapons. protestors infecting companies, to terrorists trying to cause as much collateral damage as possible. This could go horribly wrong very quickly.

If a microbe got out that ate plastic. You die. Your neighbour dies. Modern civilization dies. How is that good? How did you get so many upvotes? How do you not know this.?

As a "great scientist" once said " life..am...am...finds a way"

Like maybe a soy based plastic? It’s still a plant derived material

@@cheth5604 I'm afraid I don't know. All I know is that it's a kind of plastic.

I know that rats would eat the soy based plastics on the wiring of high end cars, so that’s my guess

@@cheth5604 well all plastic is plant derived, oil-based plastic is produced by processing oil, which itself is fossilized plants from millions of years ago, whether rats could eat it or not is irrelevant of its source, it only depends on its molecular structure, I think an edible plastic probably could be made, but whether it's quality and price could compete with oil-based plastic is another question.

@@Sami-fg2bm I’m speaking of the termite bait in particular from the original post because it is designed to be an attractant for termites

🤓

All the wax worms are very important also

This is why conservation is so important. Nature is a gargantuan chemical lab with millions of experiments running every second of every day, with evolutionary fitness being the prize. Plastic is a tremendous waste burden on the planet, but it's ALSO an immense and untapped resource, if only something was able to exploit it. And it seems that, just like it has countless times in the past, some organism has finally found a way to do it. A similar situation occurred millions of years ago during the Carboniferous period, which is when plants first evolved the ability to produce lignin, the central component that makes up wood. Nothing in their environment at the time could attack wood, so the early trees had an immense survival advantage, but the downside was that, once these trees died, you had tons and tons of wood just lying around on the ground that nothing could decompose. (In fact, the vast majority of the world's coal supply dates back to the Carboniferous, from when all of this undecayed wood got buried underground and eventually turned into coal.) Then, finally, a species of fungus developed the enzymes and ability to break down wood, and with all of this bonanza of uneaten wood lying around, it basically spread like wildfire around the world with a near-unlimited food source. Eventually other species and creatures developed similar abilities, but at the end of the day, nature found a solution. That's why conserving rare and unusual species is important, because you never know if one of them holds the key to solving some strange, as yet undiscovered, problem we'll have in the future.

Why do you have to add that you don't care about the worms lol

@@Nn-uh2kb I didn’t 🤷‍♀️ you just read it that way.

True

Fire police: "You said your house burned down, because a "worm" was eating the insulation of the power cables? Are you mental?"

Then next generation of worms will develop enzymes to digest worms resistant plastic😂😂😂😂

@@abhinavbisht9851 Exactly! 😂

And the cycle goes on...

So we now should find a way for plastic to become a safe fuel. There's endless energy.

That was my first thought

I'm sure they tested the poop

​@@RealPlatoishere Yes, I watched the video. Digestion does not equal "renders safe" If their biological processes are just making more micro plastics instead of completely breaking down the plastic the problem has not been solved.

​@@archietiberius5005 reducing the plastic is still a win. You just can't solve something instantly, especially a worldwide issue. Huge problems like this will get solved gradually and will take decades.

@@Seroxm13 Which is the exact reason I made my original comment in the first place my dude. I don't think, or expect, it to be solved overnight. I would still like to know what the biological precipitates are after digestion. Edit: Furthermore, my comment specifically refers to microplastics, which are small enough to be /suspended in atmosphere/ and are a much, MUCH larger problem than the existence of plastic in general. Making it smaller and smaller and smaller makes the problem exponentially worse. RU-vid is wild.

Yawn. For years now, scientists have been uncovering worms, fungi, bacteria, algae that can easily, quickly, naturally biodegrade plastic into harmless organic compost . . . and every years, millions of tons of plastic are manufactured, used once, and end up in landfills, streams, rivers, oceans, into marine and animal life --- and microplstics into people's cells and DNA.

We spend 56 billion dollar to build a translator for animal speech We asked the Worm King His answer was Nom Nom Nom

Yes, congratulations on manging to watch the video.

Yes, sure biologist are working on that hope so

Hi you are indian🇮🇳 living in USA 🙋🏽‍♂️🙋🏽‍♂️

It's not going to be the worms. It's going to be us, every single one of us, making a conscious decision to make a change. If we don't change our mindset, our lifestyles, perhaps this problem might go away, but we'll create other problems.

Right like sounds like another pandemic waiting to be discovered for a new future jab to me

@@tamikacopeland138 People tend to fear what they don’t understand. This attitude is why so many advances in science were demonized in the Middle Ages.

We can't stop aging but we can do what it takes to live young till the end. I'm 48, kids still see me as a cool teen to hang out with even though i joke a lot about loosing my grey hair.😂

a leech trying to take the accomplishment of others. shame on you. make your own discoveries.

I agree, Life 100 years ago was already so different. Just the fact that we are alive during this time with all these innovations happening in our lifetime is already a miracle. There’s no better time to be alive

Would you like to have a worm inside of you? It will help digest your food. All problems you see are created.

Plastic is diesel in solid form, mostly. You just pyrolize it and reclaim the fuel. No need for trying to figure out any new chemistry wizarding. Just heat a pot full of plastic and reclaim the fuel. The end.

Yeah! Science!

Yo! Mr White! Ima scientist

im glad I wasnt the only person who thought he looked like jesse lol

​@@TheFos88 MAGNETS!

Don't believe anything in this v|deo.

Hope there is no micro plastic in this process😮

The worms saliva breaks down plastic, basically deleting the bonds of that plastic

Also i dont think chickens eat those kinds of worms or they would prolly face stomach issues

chickens will eat anything. im sure they can eat those worms. theyd probably enjoy the protein

picqued my curiosity so I did a quick google just now. 'Wax Moth Larvae Galleria mellonella are a very nutritious livefood full of vitamins and minerals, these are excellent for feeding to very small reptiles and insect eating birds they are also very good at getting reluctant eaters started'. Does this mean chickens? Not sure

Nature is amazing. Just hairless monkeys tend to fuck it up

God is overwhelmingly awesome

​@@Hana085 Don't involve god into this, not everyone believes in him.

@@Hana085 😂😂😂😂😂 So who or what created God?

@@PSy84 your mum

Yes to this, they should put links to all the papers and resources in the description for us to find and read on our own as well.

this sht has been around for decades. some narcisst millennial numptie at the beeb with his self regarding vocal fried voice just decided to look clevah with it twenty yrs too late with the sea still full of fookin plastic. twats all.

Then make your own channel smartass...

Exactly

This should have gone without saying!

Frankly I'd rather it be used as substrate or fertilizer than food.

@Spooky no worries, just give it to all the people who like eating processed junk food, they are a form of worm themselves lol

However it is giving possible out of control grey ooze kind of

I watched a doc on Valmet and every time they made their paper processes more environmentally friendly it seemed like they gained a new product from the "waste" stream.

I hate this capitalist world where the only incentive we can think of is proffit. smh.

I love your avatar xD 1000 noodles !

@@DougMarv thanks

Go science. Fix the problems scientists created!

💀

😮

The plastic eating worms is actually how they procreate and develop offspring. Fascinating creatures the Kardashians, known under their scientific name, "Gluteus Plasticus"

They’ve never been quiet

LMAO

I love nature

Nature is awesome!

Truly! Also, I love your profile picture and the game it’s from

Just shows you that we can only kill ourselves, not nature.

:D if u think worms eating plastic would solve our plastic problems , you are the lowest IQ guy of the century

Weve

What is depressing is that old saying "junk in junk out" or in this case "Toxic in Toxic out" This is no solution, this is just another symptom of the plastic disease, that is poisoning our ecosystem. Its game over.

"Fighting" lol People will literally do anything than use less plastic. Cool now we have plastic eating worms.That doesn't solve the problem

@@realdragon They eat toxic waste and crap out the same amount of toxic waste only its smaller and can get deeper into our food chain. Set the doomsday clock to Midnight we are screwed.

The best explanation I found about this game, was that humans died from a plague due to the high density of the environment, and because there was no sun to kill some common bacteria and also provide vitamin D to keep the human metabolism working correctly, lots of people started do become ill and eventually die. The Zurks (evolved bacteria) mutated hundreds of thousands of years after human extinction (at least from that shelter)

Problem is we literally engineered these carbon chains to be indestructible.. plastics not reacting with anything or dissolving is why they are so impossible for any organism to break down. Ideally we would just change what we produce but you cant take away human comfort ofc

I just hope they're kept in their own closed system. Otherwise, say goodbye to the plastic covering on wires, plastic plumbing and similar infrastructure.

I used the word 'fungus', the correct word is 'mould' or 'mold', I bilieve.

@@yakb.7690 Indeed!

@@gijs-janbruil6738 No you are fine, Fungus is the term of the entire group of organisms.

They don't need to do neither actually The amount they produce is enough, and reducing is no longer necessary

There are hundreds of chemicals in plastics that act like potent and harmful hormones in humans - if the enzymes leave *any* amounts of these chemicals in real-world situations, especially concerning plastics made into food additives, human health could suffer even more than if the plastics were just burned for energy. "Forever chemicals" are bad, and also hard to break down. The focus in this video is on the long-chain polymers that make up the bulk of plastics, but the harmful plasticizers and other additives in plastics are ignored.

The solution could be to impose a plastic-production tax on those businesses, with which they fund the research & development for plastic upscaling. 🙂

How tf do businesses produce more than they are already producing lol

@@excelsior8682 By expanding their products or how much they produce while still using plastics, instead of partially or fully stop using plastic. It's simple really.

in macro scale it looks like that but the de-facto difference is that alchemy was about transforming metals which means working on atomic level and changing number of protons in atom while organic chemistry is on molecular level thus it is under common chemistry rules. Physically it is rather nucleosynthesis which is real-life alchemy because there you are not transforming chemicals one into another but transforming the elements.

​@@user-im7km8tq7j it was a metaphor

@@SweetLilWren I know but still wanted to comment an opinion on that, sorry ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@@user-im7km8tq7j Interesting information. Thanks!

That is what chemistry is, alchemy with the scientific method . Look up vids of a guy turning a plastic glove into hotsauce and another vid of a guy refining impurities out of a 1oz gold bullion.

So I'm assuming they eat thicker Plastics veriquick also

@Wildlife Warrior it depends on the type of plastic as the researcher said. If it was the same as my plastic grocery bag, then yes in theory they should be able to.

@@Kakashi713 yeah I know what he said but I wonder if a few of those could eat a thick piece of plastic in a few months

@Wildlife Warrior again, depends on the plastic as they said. There are many types of plastic and they are (to what is seen) capable of eating through two. If you gave them something that is not the two that they eat, then they won't be able to eat it, regardless of the size.

@@wildlifewarrior2670 doubt they can eat thru plastic bottle

Nature will be fine, it has survived much worse and it will probably survive until the planet gets completely destroyed. We, however, will not be fine and neither will the animals of this planet if we don't stop harming it.

Until you realize that others could do it as evolution allows some creatures other than these bacterias and worms and suddenly you might have bugs destroying plastic in things we need.

@@Quetzalcoatl_Feathered_Serpent You say this like it's a bad thing lmfao. Fuck plastic. Whatever we "NEED" that's made with plastic can or even in the past WAS made without, fuck plastic.

Eat shit, creationists. And evolve to like it.

@@Quetzalcoatl_Feathered_Serpent Last year I published a short story with that premise...

Yes, it sounds promising in theory but I'm still a bit skeptical. I really hope these worms don't leave microplastics or other harmful substances behind and the upscaling of plastic truly becomes possible. Meaning that it wouldn't need too much energy, time or money.

I think, that's something we should always keep in mind when developing new solutions. It's often overlooked and leaves as with other problems in the end.

They probably aren't even close to being able to start that research, though I would definitely like to see it happen.

The solution with worms are already there. As usual, the research company is probably trying to monetize the concept. That's why she said that we can't simply unleash the worms. Everything on this planet is about money.

9 out of 10 robot building future world domination planning AIs hate this.

Passive aggressive

​@@danielsimon4542 Redditor

What is depressing is that old saying "junk in junk out" or in this case "Toxic in Toxic out" This is no solution, this is just another symptom of the plastic disease, that is poisoning our ecosystem. Its game over.

This whole segment about worms was kind of inconsistent. In one place they say they extracted the enzyme from their saliva. Later they say, the enzymes has to be yet identified. Did they even bother examining the droppings of the worms? For all it is, it could be just worms mechanically shredding the plastic. It's like claiming that humans can digest celulose, because they can eat toilet paper and poop it out in mashed up form. Also that's not helping very much, because the smaller the plastic the more contaminating it is for the ecosystems. Also majority of the plastic pollution on the planet is nylon fishing nets, which is much tougher than your grocery plastic bag. Also all this technophiliac crap about how "science" will save us from plastic one day is a grenwashing obfuscation of actual policy of banning single use plastics altogheter.

I was wondering about the same thing, they didn't mention the most important question

@@sodalitia Unfortunately whether we ban plastics or not, they're polluting every corner of the earth already and so microbes and other such organisms will probably have to save us. Not to mention the vast amount of problems that banning single use plastics would cause, such as vastly lower shelf life which would further our waste and a lower footprint than most reusable products.

No once the enzyme which they cite enables the oxidative breaking of the polymer bonds they are not longer plastics!

@ahtan2000 Plastics are just long hydrocarbons. If the worms are able to break down the hydrocarbons, they are incorporating the shorter hydrocarbons into their body.

That's one of my biggest frustrations in this world

The currency creators can afford ANYTHING as long as there are real resources available! The entire world suffers and people die over a simple misconception of money 😢 #LearnMMT

WEF easter egg right there. You vil eat ze worms!!

Meh, I wouldn't mind really. It's not like we'd be force to eat it. It would just be another option. Along with vegan labeled food, gluten free, impossible meat, etc. It'll just say plastic-made food and it'll be up to the consumer to buy it or not. Not like it would be the only option for us.

And then you break bad

Exceptionally beautiful thought and I would recommend you read on the side, if you don't get access to information in your course material. Best of luck.

Note that the focus in this video was on the long-chain polymers that make up the bulk of plastics, but the harmful plasticizers, "forever chemicals" and other additives in plastics were ignored. Making food flavorings from plastic should be very illegal.

Organic Chemistry is fun! Loved every second of it because my professor was very good at teaching it. Hope it also does the same to you.

Try to add some extra biochemistry classes to your curriculum that should really help in inderstanding the biology side of these interdisiplinary studies. Maybe add some microbiology, possibly some nano etc. Good luck !

Your medal is in the mail.

@@emc5678 You need a medal for how far that comment went over your head!

As many things, never goes anywhere. The car moved by pressurized air. The paint that doesn't stick any dirty, the batteries that doesn't pollute and charge in seconds. In capitalism that is what we get. Technology is advance but its not worth the money, never goes out of paper. Governments should invest in this, but they don't care. They cathr the interests of corporations. Only if recycling worth more than a new plastic this will go on. Otherwise will die.

Well that doesn’t seem very productive

no but to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Well, we'll have to teach them to swim first, but...

No, just psychos.

@@nunyabitnezz2802 psychos are people too

It's cheaper and faster to extract the hydrocarbons via pyrolysis. Always will be and it's more useful. Cheap, too. That's why it's non existent.

@@camojoe83 Did we watch the same video? Is not existent because as pointed out in the video THE WORM ARE NOT THE SOLUTION BUT THE ENZYMES THEY CREATED.

Well, it's also humans who brought this problem upon ourselves.

It's pretty difficult to recycle thin plastics, so that's actually a good thing. This will be used for plastic that is too broken to recycle again. None of this will solve the problem of lazy people dumping rubbish in the sea.

With all your research did you learn that these worms only process plastic into nano-plastic waste? Did you learn that there’s zero nutritional value in which nothing is absorbed into the worms but instead just pushed out the other end as nano-plastic poop. Didn’t do much research did you 🤷‍♂

Yeah the styrofoam was always weird choice of snack but i have seen it too.

sure sure. you're like the 100th person claiming to have discovered this. shame on you for trying to take the credit away from the scientist.

​​​@@beethao9380 What do you see here is that would be unbelievable to witness for a random person ? What merit is there to take away ? It's mere observation that doesn't require any expensive or technical setup nor knowledge, just these worms and some plastic

Probably a misconception derived by the their name having "worm" in it.

this is freaking gross and i don't think that the majority of people are okay with it.

@@yakzivz1104 It’s the same as recycling water. Even if these things were once gross, like urine for example, when they are changed they don’t retain any of that original grossness. If they did retain that grossness, then all the water in the world would be unclean. (This is just the best example i can give)

@@theplumscrub1627 I still don't want plastic in my darn food. Certain things should not be mixed with food.

@@yakzivz1104 I don’t want plastic in my food either. That’s why they’re working on figuring out how to break down the plastic and restructure it until it is no longer plastic!

@@theplumscrub1627 Look all these companies have to do is stop making plastic all together. The plastic that is already all over our planet can be eaten by these worms or recycled then eaten by these worms. There is absolutely no reason to reconstitute plastic into our foods- that is not a viable option. We have to stop this madness.

No one notice you?

Nigga stfu and go touch some grasss

Or worse, in an aeroplane, & causes lives to be lost ☹

eat the plastic urself then

Maybe that’d be a good thing.

🤡 comments by a bunch of people who dont know what they're talking about.

You have no clue what you're talking about if you still think that plastic wastes go through the recycling process.

If it was being recycled, you'd have cheap diesel. You don't recycle anything, and your fuel prices are set by the government of other countries. Neat, huh?

@@beethao9380 People will call this shit revolutionary and solution to our problem. The problem isn't that plastic exist but we generate and use more plastic, If we get rid of plastic now we will produce and throw away more. People are too comfortable with life they have now and want simple easy and lazy solution so rather than changing anything they do they would rather to create genetically modified worms (introducing new worms to environment totally won't have any effect /s)

We found a lot of organism that eat plastics, the main problem is the scale and the economies of things. I have mealworms that eats styrofoam, they can eat it but it’s not good for them. They only eat it when they’re starved and prefer other things and it takes them months to digest one small styrofoam containers. So yeah this is neither new nor breakthrough, the ones that will safe us not just biochemist but also enterpreneur, managers, marketers and accountants.

@@realdragon It is revolutionary and a solution to our problem. You clearly stopped listening after the first minute. Scientists don’t need the worms, they want to synthesize their PETase enzymes. If you were diligent and not engaging in the easy and lazy solution of conplaining on the internet, you would have learned that PET breaks down into MHET and from MHETase into terephtalic acid. Terephtalic acid is a massive component of plastics manufacturing, over 30 million tonnes is in demand per year. The scientist in the clip said it was the “Trillion dollar question.” He’s absolutely right. A PETase recycling plant would rake in fantastic profit, which is the single biggest factor harming that industry: very marginal ROI. Work on your attention span. 2 minutes won’t win you any awards.

Yup