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

Re:Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting soluti... by xutopia on Monday April 24, 2017 @03:15PM (#14187163)

I forget where I heard or read this but for something like millions of years wood and other plant materials was not broken down by anything at all as there were no animals to eat away at them.

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Re:Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting soluti... by neikos on Monday April 24, 2017 @03:23PM (#14187247)

That's the carboniferous period! [1]

And it went on for about 60 Million years which seems an unfathomable timespan.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboniferous

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Re:Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting soluti... by baq on Monday April 24, 2017 @03:55PM (#14187574)

yeah, imagine all the dead trees that basically don't decompose because nothing can eat them. that'd be a sight to behold.

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Re:Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting soluti... by riskable on Monday April 24, 2017 @05:15PM (#14188364)

It actually wasn't the trees it was mostly their bark!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboniferous#Rocks_and_coal

So it wasn't mountains of wood that lay on the ground during the Carboniferous period, it was like, the best mulching job ever. The trees pwned all other species at that time. Can you imagine being a weed trying to grow up through all that bark? You'd have one hell of an up-hill battle!

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Re:Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting soluti... by baq on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @04:34AM (#14191734)

I'd evolve growing on the bark itself, given that the nearest soil was a few (dozen?) meters below. See also anything that grows on bare concrete :)

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Re:Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting soluti... by mkehrt on Monday April 24, 2017 @08:04PM (#14189632)

The atmospheric oxygen was 35%. Everything was on fire!

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