The larvae of the Zophobas morio darkling beetle are known as “superworms” because they can consume plastic garbage.

According to an Australian study, these superworms can consume and digest Styrofoam without gaining weight.

“The worm first shreds the polystyrene [versatile plastic used to make a variety of consumer products] into smaller parts, then the microbes chemically or basically use the enzymes to degrade it further,” explained by scientist Christian Rink.

The genetic material from the superworms sample was investigated using the metagenomics approach, which is simply the study of a specific collection of bacteria, to determine which enzyme can eat plastic.

The researchers employed a method named metagenomics to identify numerous encoded enzymes capable of degrading polystyrene and styrene. The long-term objective is to develop enzymes to digest plastic waste in recycling operations using mechanical shredding guided by enzymatic biodegradation.