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Cited by 523

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 5 of the 5 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Polyethylene bio-degradation by caterpillars of the wax moth Galleria mellonella

Open access
Bombelli, Paolo, Howe, Christopher J., Bertocchini, Federica·2017·Current Biology

Abstract

Plastics are synthetic polymers derived from fossil oil and largely resistant to biodegradation. Polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) represent ∼92% of total plastic production. PE is largely utilized in packaging, representing ∼40% of total demand for plastic products (www.plasticseurope.org) with over a trillion plastic bags used every year [1]. Plastic production has increased exponentially in the past 50 years (Figure S1A in Supplemental Information, published with this article online). In the 27 EU countries plus Norway and Switzerland up to 38% of plastic is discarded in landfills, with the rest utilized for recycling (26%) and energy recovery (36%) via combustion (www.plasticseurope.org), carrying a heavy environmental impact. Therefore, new solutions for plastic degradation are urgently needed. We report the fast bio-degradation of PE by larvae of the wax moth Galleria mellonella, producing ethylene glycol.

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Metadata

Authors
Bombelli, P., Howe, C. J., & Bertocchini, F.
Venue
Current Biology
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2017-04
Volume
27
Issue
8
Pages
R292-R293
ISSN
0960-9822 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2607832308
Cited by
523
References
5
FWCI
16.94
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
bronze

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Polyethylene bio-degradation by caterpillars of the wax moth Galleria mellonella. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1016/j.cub.2017.02.060
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Bombelli, P., Howe, C. J., & Bertocchini, F. (2017). Polyethylene bio-degradation by caterpillars of the wax moth Galleria mellonella. Current Biology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.02.060

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.