But researchers at Stanford found a way to speed up the process of breaking down Styrofoam and other types of polystyrene, with help from mealworms. It turns out, these worms can not only digest polystyrene, but can actually subsist on a diet exclusively made up of it. Wei-Min Wu, a senior research engineer at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering found that mealworms, which are the larvae of the darkling beetle, have microorganisms in their digestive tracts that allow them to break down the plastic.