Technical English Episode 10 Plastic-Eating Worms May Cut Pollution

Plastic-Eating Worms May Cut Pollution Before reading the text All warms eat plastic Plastic don`t cause environmental pollution Plastic is an organic compound Eating and digesting food is a chemical process _True_ False No idea ______ _______ ________

Plastic-Eating Worms May Cut Pollution Researchers may have found an unusual way to reduce plastic pollution, one bite at a time. It turns out that the common wax worm can eat plastic. Also known as the Galleria mellonella, these worms may help reduce the waste caused by plastic bags. Each year, one trillion plastic bags are used around the world. They are made from polyethylene -- one of the strongest kinds of plastic. The wax worm is the larvae, or young form, of an insect called the greater wax moth. These kinds of worms are also called caterpillars. Federica Bertocchini is with the Institute of Biomedicine and Biotechnology of Cantabria in Spain. She says researchers found that the larvae of the Galleria mellonella are able to biodegrade the plastic bags. To “biodegrade” means to break down by natural processes or bacteria. Accidental discovery They discovered this by accident, Bertocchini explains. She says the plastic bags holding the wax worms “became riddled with holes.” In other words, the bags had holes all over them when the worms were inside. Bertocchini, a beekeeper, says she made the chance discovery after removing the worms from beehives, where they live. She put the worms in a plastic shopping bag, which became full of holes. Bertocchini worked with other researchers from the Spanish National Research Council and Britain’s University of Cambridge’s Department of Biochemistry. She carried out timed experiments on the worms. She says the worms can “do damage to a plastic bag in less than an hour.” When 100 worms were placed in a normal British plastic shopping bag, the holes began to appear in just 40 minutes.

Plastic-Eating Worms May Cut Pollution After 12 hours, researchers saw “an obvious reduction in plastic mass.” They say a single enzyme produced by the worm is responsible for the chemical process that breaks down the plastic. They also found that the worms turned the polyethylene into a different organic compound called ethylene glycol. It is used in making polyester fibers as well as antifreeze for vehicles. It is not clear if the worms produce enough for commercial use. Plastic is not the worm's natural food Plastic is not the natural food for the wax worm. But the researchers say that since they lay their eggs in beehives, the larvae feed on beeswax. “Wax is a polymer, a sort of ‘natural plastic,’ that has a chemical structure that is not dissimilar to polyethylene,” Bertocchini says. Researchers say they still need to better understand how wax is digested, or processed, in the worm. Finding that out could lead to a solution for dealing with plastic waste. Bertocchini says they are planning to use this research to find a way to get rid of plastic waste. She says they are “working towards a solution to save our oceans, rivers and all the environment” from the problems of plastic waste. But, she adds, we should not throw polyethylene into the environment, “just because we now know how to biodegrade it.”

Plastic-Eating Worms May Cut Pollution Underline the words you do not know.  WORDS TO LEARN larvae caterpillar biodegrade Beehives beekeeper polyethylene ethylene fiber antifreeze riddle USEFUL EXPRESSIONS an unusual way one bite at a time may help reduce to break down riddled with holes Carry out timed experiments to get rid of

Larva – (Larvae-plural)- : /ˈlɑː.və/ Definition: a form of an insect or an animal such as a frog that has left its egg but is not yet completely developed

Caterpillar : /ˈkæt.ə.pɪl.ər/ Definition: a small, long animal with many legs that feeds on the leaves of plants, and develops into a butterfly or moth

biodegrade: /ˌbaɪ.əʊ.dɪˈɡreɪd/ Definition: To decay naturally and in a way that is not harmfull Sample sentence: Some plastics are designed to biodegrade when their useful life is over.

Beehive : Definition: a container shaped like a box in which bees are kept so that their honey can be collected

ethylene : /ˈeθ.əl.iːn/ Definition: a gas with a slightly sweet smell that burns easily, used in industry and to make fruit ripe (= ready to eat)

Fiber : /kəmˈpænjən/ Definition: any of the thread-like parts that form plant or artificial material and can be made into cloth Sample sentence: Glass fibre is often used as roof insulation.

antifreeze : /ˈæn.ti.friːz/ Definition: a liquid that is added to water in order to lower the temperature at which it freezes, used especially in car radiators (= cooling systems) in very cold weather

Answer the Questions : 1- What have researchers recently announced about the common wax worm? That their waste contains polyethylene They can live in plastic bags. Their larvae become moths That the worms can eat plastic 2- How did the scientist discover a new fact about worms? She tried putting the worms into a beehive to see what they would eat. She did tests with different kinds of worms to see which would eat plastic. Accidentally. She put them in a plastic bag, which they started eating. After many years of research on bees, she found a larvae eating the hives.

Answer the Questions : 3- What allows the worms to break down plastic? The presence of ethylene glycol The enzyme they produce in a chemical process The fact that they break it down over a long time That the plastic has a large number of holes in it 4- What do the researchers still need to learn? How the worms break down the plastic as they digest it A faster way to get the worms from beehives What the natural food is for the wax worms How to get the worms to eat plastic in oceans and rivers

TEXT ANALYZING Listen and repeat exercises. Reading laudly. Understand the text -- Underline the verbs (Use pink colour) -- Circle plural words (Use blue color) -- Underline two times the words you do not know. -- Highlight good expressions. (Use brown color)

Assignment - Assessment Learn all vocabulary. Listen to the text 10 times while reading, and listen to the same text 10 times without reading. Then record your voice while reading. Undersand the text deeply (TEXT ANALYZING) Write the text on the right of your notebook, then analyze it on the left... .. verbs, tense, plural nouns, - my favourite sentence, good expressions, words to learn 6. Summarize the text

ASSIGNMENT Make a sentence with the given expressions help reduce the waste became riddled with holes working towards a solution not throw polyethylene into the environment