Mealworms for breaking down plastic and providing food

Wake Forest University students have designed a vertical mealworm garden to raise mealworms for three uses: to breakdown plastic, provide food for humans, and use waste as fertilizer. The garden has 4 parts. Adult beetles inhabit the top section and mate. Their eggs fall into the second section, hatching into larvae to eat the Styrofoam. The team tried several types before finding that the mealworms prefer packing peanuts.
The mealworms then go into the third section where they mature and eat flour which helps to clean their palates, or guts. As they mature, their frass falls to the bottom section and can be collected for fertilizer (News Item Wake Forest University, 11 May 2016).
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