I’m interested in growing mealworms by feeding them styrofoam and some potatoes for moisture. From what I understand, mealworms will happily consume styrofoam. Styrofoam has always been a bug up my ass due to the ubiquitous nature of it in packaging and the fact that it doesn’t really decompose much and is not recycled. I remember reading about a process to recycle styrofoam using orange skin oil.
Sadly enough, for what ever reason, this recycling process has not taken off, probably because of transportation costs. I’d think it would be cost effective in a large metropolitan area, just because of the huge cost of landfill space.
So, once I grow these mealworms, and want to eat them, would the byproducts of the styrofoam in the mealworms be deleterious to me? I assume if you harvest them immediately, there would be undigested particles of styrofoam in them. Would this be bad for my health?
Assuming I wanted to clear the mealworms of styrofoam particles, how long would it take to clear the mealworms if I put them on a bran diet? I look at this like the same process of cleaning escargot by feeding them cornmeal for a couple days.
I’d actually try to do this using waxworms, the larger brethren of mealworms.
Hmmmm, yes. But the question is what are the breakdown products after the mealworm’s intestinal bacteria have done their jobs? I suppose you could just analyze the mealworm feces to find out. Or there might be by-products in the mealworm bloodstream that don’t affect them but would affect us?
I wouldn’t have thought the insects would be digesting the plastic at all - just chewing it into small pieces.
That in itself could be an issue, even if it’s the only process happening. Macroscopic pieces of plastic are pretty inert in the human digestive system, but teeny-tiny pieces of plastic are suspected of being potentially harmful (I think some of them can mimic hormones, for example)
Nope. The mealworms’ mutualistic gut bacteria actually break down polystyrene:
Emphases mine.
The gut flora appears to be digesting polystyrene into usable nutrients for both their own use and for their host (the worm). Furthermore, it appears that their castings (poop) is also good compost:
So, we have micro livestock (the worms), compost, and digested Styrofoam which is otherwise eternal and damn near indestructible. This is amazing. I hope the process gets commercialized, or goes large-scale otherwise.
You’d be wrong to think that. The linked article explains how the bacteria in the mealworm guts depolymerizes the polystyrene. They really are digesting it.
