How ‘superworms’ could solve the global plastic waste problem

‘Superworms’ could be the key to solving the global plastic waste problem.

The so-called ‘worms’, which are actually the larvae of Zophobas morio, are closely related to mealworms.

University of Queensland researchers have found they’re not only happy to chow down on polystyrene, they can actually get nutrients from it!

Senior Lecturer in the school of chemistry and molecular biosciences at the University of Queensland says the worms could be the key to finding an effective way to break down plastic.

“The worms, they shred it into smaller parts and then the microbes, the bacteria in the gut, they can chemically actually degrade the polystyrene and it looks like they can break it all the way down to styrene and then even incorporate it into biomass,” he told Ross and Russel.

“Our idea is actually we take this and we mimic the superworm, so we mechanically degrade polystyrene … then we add the enzymes in big bioreactors to break down the polystyrene. That could be a future application.”

Only a small portion of polystyrene is currently recycled, and it’s usually downcycled to produce something which is of lower value.

Press PLAY below to hear more about the remarkable discovery