Inxect Suit: Symbiotic ecosystem for mealworms to eat plastic waste

17 Oct 2022 --- Architect Pavels Liepins has designed the Inxect Suit, an ecosystem generated by human body heat where mealworms consume toxic plastic waste.

The suit is made from a low-carbon wearable plastic with a dome-shaped terrarium on the front with mealworms inside. When the wearer moves, it creates heat inside the tank to provide optimal living conditions for the worms while they feed on plastic.  

Inxect Suit is part of the broader Inxect project. The project members are planning on developing the ideas and functionalities of the suit and implementing them on much larger projects. 

“The suit is the beginning of the project Inxects - which is already developing into architecture. The suit is on a human scale, but the same concept has been developed into urban/industrial concepts,” Liepins tells PackagingInsights.  

The suit
The combination of humans providing living conditions for the mealworms and insect-eating plastic waste created by humans builds a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship.

“During the development of the project, I found out that mealworms could eat and digest plastic while having enormous potential for human use. The end result became the Inxect Suit,” says Liepins.Pavels Liepins has designed a human power-based suit that fuels a mealworm ecosystem. 

Earlier this year, Researchers at the University of Queensland, Australia, discovered a species of worms that eat polystyrene. Liepins implementing mealworms to eat plastics also creates a known protein-rich food source.

“The project was challenging in terms of designing a user-friendly device, not only for human needs but also for the mealworms,” Liepins continues.

The suit creates a waste management and protein harvesting system powered by mealworms and human emissions. The worms sustained by the suit can then be extracted and turned into food products. 

Humans nourish the worms while the worms provide the service of both breaking down human plastic waste and then serving as food. An element of the project is further pushing the idea of insects as protein and an alternative to meat.  

The suit shelters the mealworm terrarium from wind, rain, radiation, toxic waste and airborne pathogens, making it ideal for operations in extreme environmental conditions. 

Environmental impact
Liepins says the inspiration for the suit stemmed from wanting to correct a “core problem in human society.” He believes humans have an unbalanced relationship with nature. “I wanted to design a device that could put a human being in direct contact with an ecosystem, both physically and mentally.”

With rising global food insecurity and inflation, more sustainable food options are required to be investigated. Protein sources such as mealworms have a low environmental impact and provide nutritional benefits. 

The suit creates a system “competing with the meat industry while utilizing human emissions as a generator. All this with a low CO2 footprint,” says Liepins. 

Plastic waste is another rising issue that industry professionals and environmentalists consistently tackle. According to Plastics Europe, 368 billion metric tons of plastic waste was produced worldwide in 2019 and is forecasted to rise exponentially and reach 600 million metric tons by 2025. Creator of the Inxect Suit predicts scalability for insects implemented in building designs for environmentally sustainable solutions. 

“The world demands a more ecological and holistic perspective in terms of design. I believe that the Inxect suit will be one of many upcoming examples of how we can design for symbiotic relationships with the rest of nature.” 

Scalability
However, on a person-to-person scale, walking around with mealworms on one’s stomach is not predicted to trend just yet. “The suit is more or less an experience-based design that, through connecting to our human senses, changes our way of integrating with other ecosystems,” emphasizes Liepins.

However, Liepins believes other spin-off inventions inspired by the suit could occur. “I can see that the Inxect Suit and similar designs connected to experience and artificial ecosystems to become more common and more mainstream in a given context.”

Scaling the individual suit is not the primary intention for the architect, but implementing its concepts into larger scales, such as buildings, is how the technology and ecosystem behind the suit will continue. 

“A team and I are currently working on a smaller building with similar properties for the context of Copenhagen as the architecture capital 2023. The suit is almost becoming the symbol of the human relationship with non-human life, which is guiding the project’s further development,” he concludes.

By Sabine Waldeck