Plastic-Eating Waxworms: What They Can and Can’t Do

“AAH!” Startled, I looked up from my strawberry patch to see my classmates, Joe and Jon, ferociously attacking the ground with their shovels. What in the world? “Worms!” screamed Joe. We were on our junior mission trip in Taitung, and today we were helping Mr. Mauer on the farm of the special needs school. Mr. Mauer hurried over as Joe and Jon continued to attack the poor mites. “Stop! Those worms are good. We want the worms!” Joe blinked and straightened, “Oh, for real?”

Worms are not usually something to be celebrated. Most of us would probably react the same way Joe did. However, scientists are constantly discovering new things about worms that are relevant to our lives, and one type of worm in particular ― the wax worm. Biologists have identified more than 50 species of organisms that consume polyethylene, which is what most of our plastic is made of. But of all these “plastivores,” the wax worm is the most prodigious consumer of plastic.

The wax worm’s unlikely appetite was actually discovered by accident. In 2015, Federica Bertocchini, a Spanish molecular biologist who also happens to be a hobby beekeeper, found her beehive infested by wax worms. Waxworms are the larvae of wax moths, and they live on the wax in beehives. Unsurprised, Bertocchini put the worms in a plastic bag and left them. An hour later, she came back to find that the worms had staged a prison break; there were small holes in the plastic bag, and worms were all over the place.

Bertocchini then teamed up with several other scientists to discover that the same enzyme in the wax worms’ digestive system that helps them break down wax also breaks down polyethylene, which has a similar carbon backbone. This enzyme converts polyethylene into ethylene glycol, an organic and biodegradable compound. Since Bertocchini’s discovery, other studies have come out about gut bacterium in other wax worms that also breaks down polyethylene. These discoveries may teach us something about our approach to the environmental issue: perhaps the solutions to the problems we’ve caused lie in the very things we’ve been destroying; perhaps we only need to trace our steps backward and find the antidote in God’s incredible creation.

This particular “antidote” has come at a useful time. Plastic production, the unspoken culprit behind environmental destruction, is ever climbing. At the rate we’re going, by 2050 we will have more plastic in the ocean than fish! It’s not just the concern of plastic cluttering up our planet. A whopping 850 million metric tons of greenhouse gases are produced every year just from plastic production. The plastic we use in daily life is petroleum-based, and 8% of the world's fossil fuel supply goes to making plastic. This incredible amount of carbon emission from plastic production is one of the reasons our planet is warming so rapidly.

That said, as groundbreaking as this discovery is, wax worms cannot solve the plastic problem. First of all, the rate these worms eat plastic is painfully slow: it would take 100 wax worms almost a month to break down an average-sized, 5.5-gram plastic bag! Furthermore, no matter how many wax worms we have, this approach only addresses the problem of plastic waste, not the problem of plastic production. No matter how hard the plastic-degrading critters work―or eat, for that matter―there will still be more and more plastic produced to meet a consumer need that only grows.

Just think for a moment before you pick up that next plastic spoon…or before you step on that helpless worm.

This is where the potential of the wax worms ends and where our part begins. Yes, some things are just unavoidable, but, wax worms aside, there are little things we as consumers can do to alleviate both the problem of plastic waste and the problem of plastic production. We can take cloths bags when going shopping, use reusable containers instead of plastic bags, bring our own water bottles to the tea shop when getting tea with friends―they’ll charge less, too!―order from Uber and Foodpanda less, or when we do, write in the comment section that we don’t need plastic utensils. These seem like tiny steps, but taken together, they go a long way. Beyond our own efforts, exciting things are also happening at the scientific front; scientists have recently developed Solon™, a biodegradable alternative to our regular, petroleum-derived plastics.

Waxworms, innovations, and collective efforts aside, we may never find the perfect solution to our environmental problems. Regardless, our hope is not in this planet or in what we can do to restore it. Nevertheless, let us, like Joe and Jon, change our mindsets and do what we can, because the baseline is that our perspectives on creation, life, and each other impact more than just ourselves. So, just think for a moment before you pick up that next plastic spoon…or before you step on that helpless worm.

References

Arnold, Carrie. “This Bug Can Eat Plastic. But Can It Clean Up Our Mess?” National Geographic, National Geographic Society, 25 Apr. 2017. www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/wax-worms-eat-plastic-polyethylene-trash-pollution-cleanup. Accessed 21 Nov. 2021.

Thompson, Claire Elise. “ From Fiction to Reality: the Potential of Plastic-Eating Organisms.” Fix Solutions Lab, Grist, 14 Sep. 2021. grist.org/fix/wax-worm-plastic-eating-organisms/. Accessed 21 Nov. 2021.

“Interview With Dr. Federica Bertocchini.” Röchling Stiftung. www.roechling-stiftung.de/en/interview-with-dr-federica-bertocchini/. Accessed 21 Nov. 2021.

Parker, Laura. “Plastic Pollution is a Huge problem—and It’s Not Too Late to Fix It.” National Geographic, National Geographic Society, 7 Oct. 2020. www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/plastic-pollution-huge-problem-not-too-late-to-fix-it#:~:text=Historically%2C%20plastic%20 production%20has%20increased,whole%20 period%20 have%20become%20waste. Accessed 21 Nov. 2021.