Exploration of a plastic degrading microbe, isolated from Galleria Mellonella

Galleria mellonella larvae are known to be able to eat and breakdown plastics. One hypothesis for this ability is the microbes in the gut. This study isolated bacteria form the G. mellonella larvae and found that one strain was cap[able of braking down both polyethylene and polyurethane plastics. The bacteria was identified as B. subtilis and was characterised using a number of techniques.