Recycling Slaughterhouse's Biomass Using Black Soldier Fly Larvae

 October 28, 2022

By Ricardo Velazquez

The management of waste is a pressing issue around the globe. Waste is constantly being produced and put into landfills and open dumps. One of the most prevalent forms of waste, biodegradable waste, is a more direct threat to the environment because it is a direct contributor of greenhouse gases. Along with the harmful gasses the biodegradable waste produces, it can also release toxic compounds and chemicals into soil and water sources. To tackle this issue, scientists looked to the black soldier fly. The black soldier fly is a detritivore, meaning it consumes nonliving biomass; however, the fly only consumes biomass in its larval stage. Scientists saw that the black soldier fly could recycle biomass, so they conducted a study in cattle and poultry slaughterhouses. They ran several tests using, raw and cooked beef blood, raw and cooked beef viscera (internal organs), and finally raw and cooked chicken viscera. The larvae were given the different varieties of food for five days straight (each variety of biomass given to a different group). After the five days had elapsed, the larvae were dried and grinded up to be turned into high protein meal for animals. The most promising food substrate was raw beef viscera, resulting in more crude protein than a traditional feed. There are slaughterhouses all over the world, and it is unlikely that they will be disappearing anytime soon, so we need to find ways to efficiently recycle biomass while also reducing our carbon footprint. Using the black soldier fly to recycle biomass produced by slaughterhouses takes us one step closer to a more environmentally sustainable Earth.

Overall process that leads to the creation of a higher protein feed (Luperdi et al., 2022)

A.P. Luperdi, S.S. Flores-Calla, X.J. Barriga, V. Rivera, I. Salazar, P.L. Manrique, J.E. Reateguil. 2022. Bioprocessing of Organic Wastes from Poultry and Bovine Slaughterhouses as Food Substrate for Hermetia Illucens Larval Development. Global Journal of Environmental Science and Management, 9:31–42, 

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