Plastids (including chloroplasts) contain abundant protein pools that can be major sources of carbon and nitrogen for recycling. While chloroplasts have been shown to be partially and sequentially degraded by piecemeal autophagy during plant development and in response to the environment, little is known about the detailed mechanisms involved. Ishida et al. (on pp. 1372-1386) identified a new Arabidopsis mutant, gfs9-5, which is defective in a membrane-trafficking factor, GREEN FLUORESCENT SEED 9 (GFS9), and shows the abnormal accumulation of plastid bodies (PBs) that arise during piecemeal autophagy processing of plastids. The gfs9-5 mutant enables the direct observation of PB formation, which up until now has been difficult to achieve, and as such proves a useful genetic tool to investigate piecemeal plastid autophagy further.