Bold proposal urges eating invasive species to restore ecosystems: 'This is not just zero waste, it's an elimination of waste'

No matter where you reside, you've likely heard of a local problem with plants or animals that are wreaking havoc on ecosystems and draining government resources.

In r/ZeroWaste, Redditors discussed how to handle these invasive species. One user shared a photo of a pot of crawfish, noting the animals were damaging the environment where they lived and could be captured and killed at will.

"What if we just ate more invasive species? Would that be considered zero waste?" they asked.

"You've taken a waste product and turned it into a resource," one commenter wrote. "This is not just zero waste, it's an elimination of waste."

Someone who identified themselves as a wilderness skills teacher said: "Invasives negatively impact ecosystems, so harvesting them is removing a negative. You are absolutely doing the ecosystem a favor when you harvest an invasive species. The more you remove, is the more you are helping your local ecosystem and the less you had to consume from a third party vendor."

Invasive species cost the United States $20 billion annually in lost resources and management efforts. They range from feral hogs to spearmint, but all cause problems for humans as well as wildlife and plantlife by disrupting the natural rhythms of the environment.

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Invasive plants outcompete others for valuable resources and can kill off native species, while invasive animals similarly gobble up available nutrients and even eat their native counterparts, too. So, it's no surprise that the next step is for us to eat these species, which creates a two-fold benefit: the removal of crawfish or blue catfish, for example, and low- or no-waste production of meals.

🗣️ Should we be actively working to kill invasive species?

🔘 Absolutely 💯

🔘 It depends on the species 🤔

🔘 I don't know 🤷

🔘 No — leave nature alone 🙅

🗳️ Click your choice to see results and speak your mind

If you're as proficient as this poster, you can catch what you need and cook it right there on the beach. Otherwise, plenty of restaurants are joining this fight to make sure they conserve the environment in addition to feeding their customers.

With invasivorism gaining traction, we can all count on a cleaner, sustainable future.