Bio-waste treatment

Long description

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) inhabits the world’s fastest-growing population. By 2050, the population is expected to grow to 2.2 billion from 1.1 billion in 2020. Moreover, the urbanization rate is steadily increasing, leading to more people living in cities. In the recent past, this has led to a spike in municipal solid waste (“household waste”) production, which is expected to nearly triple in the mid-century.

Waste management systems in SSA are still poorly developed and most of the waste is openly dumped. Apart from sanitary challenges this also leads to high greenhouse gas emissions, especially from the uncontrolled decomposition of the large proportion of organic waste.

Biowaste treatment with black soldier flies1 (BSF) is a possible solution to tackle the increasing organic waste piles in SSA. Over its life cycle, the black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) consume vast amounts of organic material and through an engineered life cycle, the BSF can be used to process organic waste into high-valuable protein meal which is an excellent protein source for various livestock such as chickens, pigs and fish. Moreover, the leftover (“insect frass”) is a highly effective fertilizer to boost crop growth.

The benefit of biowaste treatment with BSF is not only the upcycling of organic waste but also the significant reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that can be achieved: Compared to open dumping of organic waste, BSF treatment can reduce GHG emissions by 80-90%.

Our mission is to create an ecologically and socio-economically viable biowaste treatment process for SMEs.

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