Although many places have begun to advocate the plastic bag charging system and vigorously popularize degradable products, it is still a dime a dozen to solve the problem of plastic waste pollution. A Spanish biologist stumbled upon that the larvae of the wax borer may provide clues to a potential solution. In the wild, wax borers survive as a parasite in the hive, laying their eggs in the hive, and the worms grow by eating beeswax as soon as they hatch.
The scientist took out the wax borer larvae that were born in the hive and stored them in a plastic bag, only to find that the bag was full of holes a few minutes later— they ate part of the plastic bag and escaped. If 100 wax borers were put in supermarket plastic bags, they would eat nearly 92 milligrams of plastic after 12 hours: that's much faster than fungi and bacteria known to degrade plastic. The researchers applied mashed wax borers to plastic bags, which produced similar results, suggesting that there was an enzyme or special compound in the worm that was degrading.
Further research confirmed that wax borer larvae can break down polyethylene into glycol, a mechanism that may be related to their perennial consumption of beeswax. Scientists hope to find this mysterious and decomposition-promoting substance from the wax borer and completely solve the problem of white pollution.