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AFP
Paris
A moth caterpillar commonly bred to provide fish bait feasts on a notoriously resistant plastic, scientists reported Monday, raising hopes the creature can help manage the global problem of plastic-bag pollution.
"This discovery could be an important tool for helping to get rid of the polyethylene plastic waste accumulated in landfill sites and oceans," said Cambridge University professor Paolo Bombelli, co-author of a study published in the journal Current Biology.
Polyethylene represents 40 percent of Europe's demand for plastic products, mostly in the form of packaging and shopping bags.
Taking many years to biodegrade, these objects constitute a serious hazard for the environment, especially for sea life, when they are not recycled.
In the European Union, 38 percent of plastic is thrown out in landfills.
The promising discovery centers on the wax worm -- the name for the caterpillar larva of Galleria mellonella, or greater wax moth.
In its pre-caterpillar form, the species is commercially raised as maggots to provide fish bait and aquarium food.
The moth is also a scourge of apiculture, laying its eggs in the precious honeycomb of beehives.
The find happened by accident at the home of the study's lead author, Federica Bertocchini, a biologist at the Institute of Biomedicine and Biotechnology of Cantabria in Spain.
Bertocchini keeps beehives as a hobby.
"When I went to clean them for reuse in the spring, they were infested with (wax) worms," the researcher told AFP.
"So I put them in a bag. Then, after a while, I saw the bag was full of holes and these caterpillars were crawling all around my place."
Startled by the caterpillar's voracious appetite, Bertocchini and a team from Cambridge University decided to conduct experiments to find out just how much, and how quickly, the pests could consume environmentally harmful plastic.
