It is deplorable given the fact that 40 percent of the country’s population does not even have access to nutritious and healthy food....
PLANET TALK
According to WWF-Pakistan’s Sustainable Agriculture and Food Programme Report 2021, more than 36 million tons of food is wasted every year and ends up at the dump sites in Pakistan. It is deplorable given the fact that 40 percent of the country’s population does not even have access to nutritious and healthy food.
Organic waste which is 50-75 percent of the municipal solid waste in low-and-middle income settings predominantly comprises of raw and cooked food waste. It not only results in huge waste collection, transportation and land costs for disposal but also causes serious environmental and human health issues. This is mainly due to exponential increase in population, uncontrolled consumption patterns, outdated food production systems with ejection of massive waste amounts, thus badly suffocating Mother Earth.
Recyclables with economic value such as paper, plastic, metal are separately collected by the informal sector ‘scavengers’ either at source or dump sites. However, food waste due to its perceived lower economic value is not separated at or near the source before disposal. Food waste which is yet underutilised resource has huge recycling potential and can be converted into several useful market products. In this regard the most commonly practiced food waste recycling options include direct animal feeding, conventional compositing and biogas production.
Direct animal feeding is widely practiced in rural areas and serves as a simple food waste value recovery option for animal farmers. Composting involves aerobic decomposition of food and agricultural waste producing nutrient-rich stable material known as compost, which is essential for plant growth. Aanaerobic digestion for biogas production has been shown as another potentially feasible option. All these recycling options aim at maximising the value for the environment while at the same time minimising the costs of waste management and treatment. However, there are certain risks and challenges associated with them. For example, directly feeding decaying items and meat waste is not suitable for most of the animals. Furthermore, the contamination of food waste in anyway may either directly affect the possible use or persist in the recycled product, thus requiring very careful waste segregation or pre-treatment. Composting further requires space, high temperatures, long time period of generally 3-12 months, face challenges such as generation of green-house gases and leachate. Biogas technology requires more complicated setup, know how, H2S gas and moisture removal before use.
Another emerging and very promising recycling option is Black Soldier Fly Larvae (BSFL) technology that utilises the ability of tiny bugs to convert a variety of food wastes into safe and nutritious feed source for animals and plants. BSF technology is capable of retrieving 100 percent of the food waste into protein rich animal feed for chicken, fish, and birds along with nutrient rich soil conditioner with up to 80 percent of waste reduction by weight in a time period of just two weeks. The process is of great economic and ecological significance, as it not only slows, narrows and close the loops of waste flows but also place it back into the food chain. Waste sanitisation and hygienic aspects, reduced green-house gas emissions with no generation of methane gas and inhibition of vector house flies are some of the dominant characteristics out of many. There is a great potential towards use of this technology to process the waste and produce the feed. Natural protein could be the next scarce commodity in the country and in great demand which can be produced using BSFL technology.
Dr. Saleha Mahmood is Pakistan’s first and only PhD in Organic Waste Treatment Using Black Soldier Larvae (BSFL), who reared the BSF in Pakistan and used them to treat waste and produce protein at field level. She completed her PhD from GCUL under supervision of the authority on the subject, Dr. Christian Zurbrügg from Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (EAWAG) Switzerland.