Soldier Flies as a Key in the War Against Organic Waste

I ran into DNews where I got the video (above) to share. The interesting fact is that flies can get a bad name. In business, there's the term that the place is simply visited only by flies, to show that business is bad. Flies love dirty places and they're carriers of germs. However, I was soon amazed to learn about maggot therapy a few years back. Maggot therapy is using disinfected larvae of flies that only lay their eggs on decaying tissue. These tiny maggots begin as much decaying tissue as possible. With that in mind, I even feel like if one day I ever get diabetic or have a slow-healing wound, I would certainly want that procedure! I would choose to have disinfected maggots on my wound, even if the idea sounds cross. That would be better than losing my foot! After showing interest in maggot therapy, I certainly find this procedure amazing!

An interesting concept from Singapore that I wish I knew existed

Singapore may be a first-world country but you can't get rid of wasteful people, right? When there are too many food choices--food waste is a real problem. In 2021, it turns out that there's this research body called Insectta, a Singapore start-up. Modernization is no excuse to throw away biotechnology. Sure, we can have the Internet but we can't really do without biotechnology. It was through the Internet I learned of biotechnology such as the use of maggots from a horsefly to eat away human necrotic tissue. The introduction given by CNN Business gets me interested in exploring this for the Philippines:

Singapore-based farmer Chua Kai-Ning spends a lot of her day making sure that her animals are well fed and growing fast.

But she’s no ordinary farmer, and these aren’t ordinary animals.

Chua and her partner, Phua Jun Wei, founded startup Insectta in 2017. They are battling Singapore’s food waste crisis with the help of an unlikely ally: the black soldier fly larva. 

“The concept behind Insectta is that nothing goes to waste,” said Chua. “Waste can be reimagined as a resource if we change how we think about our production methods, and how we deal with waste.”

In 2020, Singapore generated 665,000 metric tons of food waste — only 19% of which was recycled.

Chua said the company feeds the black soldier fly maggots up to eight tons of food waste per month, including byproducts received from soybean factories and breweries, such as okara and spent grain.

Insectta can then flash dry the maggots into animal feed, and turn the insects’ excrement into agricultural fertilizer.

While there are plenty of companies using insects to manage waste, including Goterra, Better Origin and AgriProtein, Insectta is extracting more than agricultural products from black soldier flies. With funding from Trendlines Agrifood Fund and government grants, Insectta is procuring high-value biomaterials from the byproducts of these larvae.

“During R&D, we realized that a lot of precious biomaterials that already have market value can be extracted from these flies,” Chua told CNN Business. The startup hopes its biomaterials can revolutionize the growing insect-based product industry and change the way we look at waste.

This is a very interesting project of continuing the late Lee Kuan Yew's vision of greening up Singapore. The Asian Trails give these details about Insectta and its location:

The first stop is Kok Fah Technology Farm, the island’s largest vegetable farm where means other than soil, such as hydroponics, increase output by around 20 per cent, on much smaller cultivation plots.

The exploration continues to Inseccta Singapore where insects turn trash into treasure. Many countries face the problem of excess food waste and this enterprise uses black soldier fly larva to eat through an average eight tons of food surplus per month. The grubs can eat up to four times their body weight in food in a single day and the resultant by-product is turned into agricultural fertilizer to yield more crops – part of an ongoing cycle that sustains life for Singaporeans.

The enlightening excursion ends at an open farm community where kids can pet animals and see where food originates. After helping to cultivate organic crops, a healthy lunch provides the physical connection between urban and rural settlements.

So much for the claim of crazy anti-FDI pages on Facebook that opening a country to FDI will automatically ruin the country (read here). Yes, it can ruin a country if one's not careful in regulating businesses. That's why LKY wrote about greening up Singapore in his famous book From Third World to First. This new biotechnology business would help explore natural alternatives without otherwise getting rid of modern technology. Modern technology can still help create better facilities while respecting nature. 

The Philippines needs to continue to do research on this wonderful biotechnology project

Just watching the videos on YouTube (from official news channels) gets me amazed. The Philippines isn't Singapore is a usual excuse. Just think that other countries with more natural resources (such as Communist Vietnam) learned from Singapore. To green up the Philippines, it would be important to realize the Philippines may be a better, more potent source of power. Fortunately, Inseccta's idea can work in the Philippines as proven by 

What interested me was reading this news on a start-up in the Philippines, similar to Inseccta from Singapore. The founder is a foreigner named Peter Damary, who I believe is from Switzerland based on the information provided. These are some details of FiveDol that might be very interesting:

Aiming to turn that trash into treasure, an eco-agricultural startup is piloting a program to produce compost and animal feed using black soldier flies. FiveDOL Upcycling Corp. started commercial operations in March 2021, and is the first such outfit of its kind in Mindanao (a few similar initiatives are launching in the northern Luzon region of the Philippines). It uses techniques developed with the help of the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag).

“Food waste is a good resource that we can create value from while at the same time helping to conserve the environment and address the problem on biodegradable kitchen waste using the black soldier fly,” Peter Damary, FiveDOL’s chief executive officer, told Mongabay in a video interview.

By harnessing the rapid growth of the flies and their capacity to break down kitchen waste, scientists and engineers have, over the last few years, been able to develop an efficient technology to transform large quantities of kitchen waste into insect protein and compost beneficial to agriculture and the environment, Damary said.

Despite its wasp-like appearance, black soldier flies don’t sting. A female can produce between 500 and 900 eggs during its two-week lifetime. The larvae, once mixed with kitchen waste, grow very quickly: From 1 millimeter in length, the black soldier fly larvae can reach 27 mm (1 inch) long and 6 mm (0.25 in) wide, and can weigh up to 0.22 grams, nearly as much as an aspirin tablet, after just 18 days.

Damary said the black soldier flies, which originated in the Americas, have long been present in the wild in the Philippines and do not pose risks to the local ecosystem, or worse, become invasive. The adult flies naturally die after two weeks and they thrive only on decaying wastes. Black soldier flies have significantly reduced mouth parts compared to housefiles; they don’t bite and are not known to transmit any diseases.

During the larval stage, they consume and convert large quantities of food waste into compost, while the larvae grow rich in protein and can be used as alternative feed for chicken or pigs.

I think having a start-up alone with FiveDOL may not be enough. If Singapore's Inseccta becomes bigger, I think the researchers of the companies can also set up branches in the Philippines. It's nice to have a foreigner like Damary help Filipinos. That's so much for saying that FDI will just destroy the environment. FDI can destroy the environment if there are no proper rules with environmental laws. If not, learning foreign technology that can help sustain the environment is a huge must. 

With some friendly competition, these firms would set up and start helping green up the Philippines. I could imagine the supply-demand gap for waste disposal may be greatly lessened. A foreigner was kind enough to lend technology like that. I would want to have Filipinos also go to learn from Singapore's  Kok Tah Technology Farm. It might also be advantageous to learn from other ASEAN countries too. There can be other ASEAN countries where a similar concept can exist. Have them invest in the Philippines (and don't get them to have 60-40 restrictions but let them have the option of 100% share ownership or find a local partner) to help in getting rid of waste disposal. 

The DENR of the Philippines can also learn from Malaysia

Singapore may be my favorite starting point. However, I think Malaysia is where the Philippines can learn in terms of going for the charter change. Malaysia has also launched a project to combat waste using black soldier flies last April 17, 2022. This was more of a government initiative that may involve private firms carrying the project:

TANAH MERAH: Malaysia will soon use black soldier fly larvae to process organic waste, including those in landfills, said the country's Environment and Water Ministry on Sunday (Apr 17). 

"The larvae of this species of fly are the best model used for sustainable food waste disposal, besides helping to reduce dumping of food waste into landfills," said Environment and Water Minister Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man.

Speaking at the launch of the project at the Tanah Merah wholesale market site, the minister said black soldier flies will be used to process various daily organic waste, as well as to protect the environment and reduce pollution. 

The black soldier fly facility will process waste products collected from the Manal wholesale market and the Bandar Tanah Merah general market. The larvae will also be kept at a special house located behind both markets. 

The process is expected to reduce waste dumped in landfills, equivalent to a potential reduction of 3 tonnes of carbon dioxide per day, said Mr Tuan Ibrahim. He added that the facility could also produce compost to replace chemical fertilisers for the local authorities' use. 

The Philippines having so many markets would also want to learn from this. Singapore can be learned from but it's not the only country the Philippines can learn from. I prefer to cite Malaysia as an example more since it's a federal-parliamentary country. The current DENR secretary Maria Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga may want to collaborate with Tuan Man to help encourage the project. This would be a productive new way to help fight for a greener Philippines.