Plastic pollution is a problem whether it's on land, whether it's in freshwater, whether it is in the ocean. It is a problem all over the world. Everybody's experiencing it and we continue to use single-use plastics like there
isn't a problem. We continue to put out billions and billions of pounds of plastics each and every year into the ocean affecting and killing over hundreds of thousands of animals you know in the ocean including sharks including whales and dolphins and seabirds and so forth and it's just not helping we need to we need to figure out ways to stop it there are ways to recycle certain plastics like polystyrene in a chemical and physical way that we do in our you know in a waste management plant
but that also produces a lot of toxins and it's very expensive so not everybody is willing to pay for it i know here in Canada and even in Ontario where I live, not a lot of, or it's just starting to come on where we're seeing more and more recycling happen of styrofoam, but certain regions may not have the capacity to take it. So we need to find ways, better ways of recycling these things. And we may have actually found it in an African mealworm. Yes, an insect, a larval mealworm
that is able to break down polystyrene. So that means styrofoam products because of the microbes and bacteria in their gut. We're going to talk about how that happens and what we need to do about it to really bring it to scale and allow mass production of this, of these enzymes and these microbes on this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show. Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm
your host, Andrew Lunen. This is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. And this is the place, if this is the first time you've been here, this is the place where you find out everything you need to know about the ocean. Ocean news, you can find out how to speak up for the ocean. We have blogs, we
have podcasts, I have Ocean Talk. We do a lot of different things on our YouTube channel. We have podcasts all about oceans. And if you want to get them all in one place, you can go to our website, speakupforblue.com. That's www.speakupforblue.com. And if you want that information to your inbox, you get the latest podcasts, the latest videos that we do. The latest news and the latest job ads, you can get that if you just go to speakupforblue.com forward
slash newsletter. That's speakupforblue.com forward slash newsletter. Put in your email. It's all free. You get it to your inbox Monday to Friday. I can't wait to see you there. I'd love to hear what you think of the newsletter. Let me know just by responding and it goes right to me and I would love to hear your thoughts on that. But let's get into the episode. This is an interesting one. I've heard a lot about biological ways of breaking down plastics, how that could be the way to
move. And there's two real big things that we need to do to ensure that these persist, like this type of innovation persists. One, we need to protect biodiversity on land and in the water, whether it's freshwater or ocean. We need to make sure that biodiversity is protected because you never know when you find a
larval mealworm that can actually break down styrofoam. We won't know this if we allow all this destruction of our biodiversity in the the Convention on Parties for Biological Diversity last week. We talked a little bit about that. There needs to be more that needs to be done. There's an international Convention of Biodiversity Treaty that's in place and a lot of countries aren't really, you know, putting their money where their mouth is in terms of that protection.
They're trying, not trying hard enough as usual. So more needs to be done to protect biodiversity. The other thing is we need to start putting these animals and putting the stuff that we learn from these animals to scale so that we can actually break down plastic faster. And in this case, this was an African mealworm that was done on a study with the person who's writing this article in The Conversation is Fathia She's a senior scientist at International Center of Insect Physiology and Ecology
at the Australian Center for International Agricultural Research. That was what it was funded by. But this is a really interesting study. So essentially, the study that they've looked at, they looked at the larvae of the Kenyan lesser mealworm that can chew through polystyrene, which is styrofoam, and host bacteria in their guts that help break down the material. So the lesser mealworm is the larvae from the Alphitobius darkling beetle. The larval
period lasts about 8-10 weeks. The lesser mealworm are mostly found in poultry rearing houses which are warm and can offer a constant food supply, ideal conditions for them to grow. and reproduce. But the study also examined the insect's gut bacteria, and they want to identify bacterial communities that may support the plastic degradation process. So if they can support that, then they can find out what the bacteria is
and what the enzymes they use. Maybe they don't necessarily need the lesser mealworm, because it'd be weird to just take a bunch of mealworms and just throw them into a landfill or throw them into a recycling plant. That'd be really creepy and weird, I think, to do that. So I think what the goal is is to extract and understand the bacterial communities that allow and foster this degradation in the gut of the mealworms and as well as the enzymes that they produce to be able to
do that. So by studying these natural plastic eaters, They hope to create these new tools that can help get rid of plastic waste faster and more efficiently. So some of the key findings that they had was that when they fed the larvae different types of diets. So one was they just fed them polystyrene alone, so styrofoam type products. The other one was a mixture or the other one was just bran, which is like a nutrient-dense food that was just that. Then they did a combination of polystyrene and
bran. They found that the efficiency and the breakdown was 11.7% of the total polystyrene when they had the balanced diet. So they realized that you still need a nutrient-rich diet for these mealworms to maybe they're thinking to produce the actual bacteria and the enzymes in their gut so that they can break down the bacteria or the polystyrene material because when it was just polystyrene material diet, they just didn't do it as efficiently and they didn't last
as long. So the scientists want to make sure that if you are using mealworms or you were trying to find out what fosters this type of bacteria that allows this bacteria to survive in the gut, is maybe have a diverse and nutrient-rich food. So that was kind of cool. Now, they did notice that in the gut, the gut bacteria reveal significant shifts in bacterial composition
depending on the diet. So understanding these shifts in the composition is crucial because it reveals which microbes are actively involved in breaking down the plastics. So this would help them isolate the specific bacteria and the enzymes that can be harnessed. So what they're thinking is if you're just having a polystyrene diet,
there could be specific bacteria in there. Or, if you're doing the combination, it could help produce that bacteria that would make sure that these polystyrene material breaks down the material. And it could mean that the bacteria, depending on what's available in terms of food, might change in order
to serve the mealworm better. So, what they noticed in the larvae, they found that they contain higher levels of Proteobacteria and Firmicutes bacteria that can adapt to a number of various environments and break down a wide range of complex substances. The bacteria such as Clovera, Lactococcus, Citrobacter, and Klebsiella were also particularly abundant and are known to produce enzymes capable
of digesting plastics, so synthetic plastics. So the bacteria won't be harmful to the insect or the environment when used at scale. So, that's always good. So, these are naturally occurring bacteria that just have the ability to break down a synthetic plastic. So, that's always great. Now, the abundance of bacteria indicates that they play a crucial role in breaking down the plastic. This may mean that mealworms may
not actually have the ability to eat plastic. Instead, when they start eating the plastic, the bacteria in their guts might change to help break it down, just as I mentioned earlier. Thus, the microbes in the mealworms' stomachs can adjust to unusual diets such as plastic. So the findings do support their hypothesis that the gut of certain insects can enable plastic degradation. This is likely because the bacteria in the gut can produce enzymes that break down the plastic
polymers, which is always great to do. Now, the next thing to do is, you know, they know that certain insect species like yellow mealworms and superworms have already demonstrated the ability to consume plastics. They're able to break down the materials like polystyrene with the help of bacteria in their gut. But the research is also unique
because these mealworms are from Africa. Now, Africa has a lot of problems with dealing with plastic waste in that they purchase and import a lot of products that have plastic waste, but they also don't necessarily have the infrastructure to deal with the recycling or even storage of that waste. So a lot of times it gets into the environment, can harm not only habitats but the animals that live within that. So that is obviously a pretty
difficult thing. So having, you know, a unique adaptation or a unique mealworm that's specific to Africa to be able to look at these and develop these methods within Africa can really help you know, African countries be able to—like Kenya and others to be able to help focus and isolate these areas. Now, the big thing is can they isolate the bacteria and the enzymes to work at scale? So you're obviously not
going to just use mealworms. You're going to try and isolate and potentially make a product that would have the bacteria and those enzymes in it so that they can use it for—in processing plants and so forth. It's a pretty interesting study and it builds on other studies that have been done. I've seen this a lot and we just haven't seen, we haven't heard a lot about the development. That's why I want to kind of talk about it today. Again, trying to stay on
our good news week after last week's presidential election. So I'm trying to... you know, see that there's hope that we can potentially and sometimes innovate our way out by using what is around us in the environment. Having and identifying animals and insects that are able to break down synthetic plastic is a huge, huge change in the way that we could manage plastic
in the future. I'm not saying that we have to make more or that we're able to make more but if we can break this down biologically that is a huge help instead of having to create other toxins from the recycling process of using chemical or physical recycling like burning of this styrofoam which we know is not good for the environment. The more we can do biologically with a less impact on the environment, the better, and I think it's really great. But I'd love to hear your
thoughts on this. I would like to hear your thoughts. You can go on our YouTube channel where this episode is. You can just leave a comment. You can leave a comment on Spotify if you're watching the video or you're listening to this on your AirPods while Commuting to work or while in your jog or walking your dog or whatever you're doing outside or inside, you know Whatever you're doing and you're listening to this audit
from the audio perspective. I'd love to hear your thoughts. You can hit me up on Instagram at how to protect the ocean that's at how to protect the ocean all one word I would just love to hear your thoughts. And don't forget, I did put out a vlog earlier this week. So you can go check that on our YouTube channel. You just go to YouTube and just look up Speak Up for Blue TV. You can get to that channel and I'll link to it in the show notes. So thank you very much for listening to this episode of
the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. Have a great day. We'll