Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

Re:Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting soluti... by SonicPenguin on Monday April 24, 2017 @01:56PM (#14186418)

Five years ago my balcony was invaded by fly larvae (maggots i guess) because my flatmate left some raw meat in the trash bin. While trying to contain the invasion, i put some of them in two or three nested plastic bags, but they ALWAYS found their way through the plastic after some minutes. They were literally making holes in them. I thought this was normal and well-known!

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Re:Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting soluti... by justinclift on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @06:41AM (#14192287)

Well, while might be possible they were properly digesting/biodegrading the plastic involved, it's also possible they were just "chewing holes" in the plastic. eg mechanical action making the plastic smaller, but not changing its chemical structure

The caterpillars in the linked article are biodegrading the plastics into non-plastic (fairly quickly). That's the key thing.

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Re:Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting soluti... by nommm-nommm on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @10:37AM (#14193887)

Well if you put me in a plastic bag I would also be able to get out by tearing a hole in the plastic bag. That fact doesn't say anything about my ability to metabolize plastic though. I would never even consider the worms were doing anything else but mechanically chewing the plastic.

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