可以降解塑料的虫子

○张军辉

Worm that can break down plastic

Plastic pollution has become one of the largest threats to the environment and the lives of creatures on the earth. It can be seen everywhere, in the city, in the countryside, in the oceans and now people even find micro⁃plastics as high as 8848 meters above sea lev⁃el on Mount Qomolangma and as far as in the North Pole.

Why does plastic occupy nearly the whole earth? Because plastic is really hard to break down.

So，many countries have banned the one-single-use plastic bags. But the problem still remains. Good news is that a recent re⁃search has found that a chemical from a kind of worm can break down plastic. This worm is wax worm. Researchers found enzymes in its saliva that can break down plastic in a rela⁃tively short time.

Bertocchini is a female scientist and she accidently found this fact. She put the wax worms in a plastic bag and when she returned later, she found the bag was full of holes. She wondered if the worms were eating the plas⁃tic, and she did experiments to find that two enzymes in the worm′s saliva could break down plastic in only a few hours at room tem⁃perature.

塑料污染已经成为影响环境和地球生物生存的最大威胁之一。塑料无处不在，城市、乡村、海洋都有它的身影，人们甚至在8 848 米高的珠穆朗玛峰和遥远的北极都发现了塑料微颗粒。

为什么塑料几乎占据了整个地球？因为塑料很难降解。

所以许多国家禁止使用一次性塑料袋。但是问题仍然存在。好消息是最近的一项研究发现一种虫子体内的化学物质可以降解塑料。这个虫子是蜡虫。研究人员在它的唾液中找到了可以在相对短的时间内降解塑料的酶。

波特切尼是一名女科学家。她不经意间发现了这个现象。她把蜡虫放进塑料袋，当她再次见到塑料袋时，发现了袋子全是洞。她怀疑是虫子在吃塑料，她做了实验，结果发现蜡虫唾液中有两种酶，可以在室温条件下，几小时内分解塑料。