A wriggly way to manage food waste

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A handful (500gm) of PateeWorms.

A handful (500gm) of PateeWorms.

MOST people are naturally squeamish about worms. They think these crawly wriggly little things are nasty and dirty and will have nothing to do them — if they can help it.

But worms are VVIPs (very, very important pests) of the ecosystem. Without those legless little creatures in nature, the two-legged self-proclaimed intelligent creatures (that’s us) may not even have come into existence in the first place.

That’s because the ecosystem would not have been able to sustain life as it is if not for worms playing the crucial function as recyclers of decomposing rotting organic materials that subsequently enable plants to grow, thereby producing food for living things.

There is an uncountable number of species of worms but one that seems to have a very ravenous appetite called the PateeWorm has been found to be very useful to us. They can eat huge amounts of food scraps a night in small composting units, eliminating waste before it can even begin to rot.

Because of their ability to consume a wide range of organic materials, worms have huge waste management potential which, if fully tapped, will significantly reduce food waste in the country.

Moreover, the pre-pupae stage of these insect larvae can be harvested and used as nutritious livestock feed. This is because their bodies contain 42 per cent protein and 38 per cent fat, which can serve as the main ingredients in animal feed.

“It’s an alternative for dealing with food scraps” said Wee Hung Yee who has a Chemistry background and also initiated a ‘WormingUp Programme’ because of his interests in the PateeFly insect.

He has found the larvae of this insect to be a great composting solution — as Nature’s ultimate food recyclers. Food waste can, therefore, be more efficiently composted at home, using these larvae which work faster than any other worms.

“Doing our own composting helps in food waste management, at the same time benefitting the environment,” Wee said.

PateeFlies look  for mates.

PateeFlies look
for mates.

Sharing same interests

PateeWorm (Black Soldier Fly Larvae) and PateeFly (Black Soldier Fly) are local names given by Wee and his team members, Tan Pei Chin from a biotechnology background, and Mohammad Ihsan, a human resource development graduate.

They all share the same interest in worm and fly farming in relation to food waste management and food recycling. They have their own fly farm or fly hatchery that doubles as a bio-factory to produce eggs and larvae.

Wee said the scientific name for the Fly is Hermetia illucens, a member of the Stratiomyidae family in the Diptera order. Diptera is taken from the Greek ‘di’ which means two, and ‘ptera’ which means wings as most flies only have two wings.

“On average, a household will produce about 1kg of food waste per day. This waste can be composted at home, using PateeWorm. They stop eating when getting ready to pupate during which they harvest themselves into dry buckets provided,” he explained.

Foreign species

The Black Soldier Fly is a foreign species — a tropical fly indigenous to the whole of the Americas — from the southern tip of Argentina to Boston and Seattle.

Wee believed during the World War II, the Black Soldier Fly spread to Asian countries, including Malaysia.

“When they spread here, they began to adapt to our environment and climate and breed. It could be that the flies colonised corpses of soldiers in warships and when these ships arrived here, the flies started their new habitat.”

The mini PateeFly farm at Kota Samarahan.

The mini PateeFly farm at Kota Samarahan.

They are not pests

Unlike many fly species, neither the larvae nor the adults is considered pests or harmful vectors. Instead, PateeWorms are essential decomposers for breaking down organic substrates and returning nutrients to the soil and environment. They can be an excellent source of sustainable protein for aqua culture, animal feed, pet and human nutrition.

“As the larvae have voracious appetites, they can be used for composting household food scraps and agricultural waste products. The larvae can consume organic waste with the efficiency of 1:1 (PateeWorm: food waste).

“Hence, with this kind of capacity, we can reduce food waste that would otherwise end up in landfills. Besides, we can produce more bio-protein (PateeWorm) for animal feeds. Overall, we can turn low quality bio-waste into high quality bio-protein,” Wee enthused.

The short natural lifespan of the PateeFly is the reason why it’s not ‘a vector of human pathogens’ which means it does not have the potential to transmit any disease to people.

Eight days lifecycle

PateeFlies have a lifespan of about eight days and their entire adult life is all about mating and reproducing. Their eggs are relatively slow to hatch — about four days. The newly-hatched larvae swarm into and attack a waste heap and consume it with amazing speed.

The worms reach maturity in about two weeks under ideal conditions after which they are ready to pupate. At this stage, the larvae will seek out a dry area to bury themselves in, then wait it out another two weeks before emerging as adults.

The PateeFly farm maintains continual PateeFly life cycles.

Wee said once the team had collected the eggs, they would bring them to the worm farm for hatching. The emerging larvae would then do the composting. The material used is mainly food waste collected from restaurants and hotels.

A PateeFly life cycle from eggs, larvae, pupae, and finally adult fly, is about a month or so.

Wee with his team (from left Doris, Pei Chin, and Anis).

Wee with his team (from left Doris, Pei Chin, and Anis).

WormingUp Programme

Wee said he started the WormingUp Programme in November 2015 to make a difference to the environment and the community as well. He thought it would be more ecologically-friendly to make good use of food people threw away.

“We also believe it’s a good thing to raise awareness of the need to reduce food waste, but then human behavior or culture cannot be changed overnight,” he noted.

Wee comes from a middle income family. To help his family out, he worked as a restaurant waiter when he was 13. It was then he discovered a lot of leftover food had gone to waste. Later, while attending an environmental chemistry class, he learned how food waste could contribute to climate change after it had been dumped by the truckloads on landfills.

The methane gas, anaerobically released by waste decays into the atmosphere, is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Studies have shown food waste alone contributes to some two per cent of global greenhouse gases which, in the long term, can cause some disturbance to the climate.

Wee was perturbed by this fact, prompting him to ponder over the matter seriously. He believed there must be something he could do in his own small way to arrest environmental degradation.

So, in January last year, he seized the opportunity that came his way to travel Mauritius for a project called ‘Stay Green’, aimed at teaching people how to sort out the various kinds of recyclable waste. Such knowledge could be effectual if imparted through awareness talks to secondary school students.

Part of the project’s daily routine involved separating recyclable items and then putting the organic waste into a composting bin to make organic fertilisers.

One day, Wee came to discover that the layer of organic waste, discarded the day before, had disappeared. He noticed the bottom part of the bin was infested with a kind of worm.

“After surfing the Internet for information and doing some research, including field visits, I came to the conclusion these worms could rapidly reduce most of the organic waste — something like a ton of worms could consume a ton of food waste a day. I then proceeded to learn more about worm-breeding techniques in University of Mauritius and later brought the technology back to Malaysia.

“At home, I started using houseflies as sample materials to brush up my fly-breeding skills. I also went with my team to the jungles along the Serikin border to look for worms and did research on them to find out which species had similar potential to be a great composting solution like the ones I found in Mauritius. After three months, we discovered the PateeWorms and started breeding them at home.”

Applying for permit

After a few months later, Wee and his team started a mini fly and worm farm at Kota Samarahan to carry out breeding on a larger scale. To avoid breaking any law, Wee applied for a permit from whichever was the relevant authority. He approached the Agriculture Research Centre and was shocked to learn as no one in Sarawak had applied for such a permit before, the Agriculture Department could not issue it, being was unsure what category the project should come under.

“We then realised we were pioneer fly breeders in Sarawak. We went to all experts and found there was a lack of data, research and report on the kind of work we did. Where the permit is concerned, the relevant authorities aren’t sure how to categorise our work and what kind of permit we need to apply. As for the lab testing, they also don’t know what kind of chemical and microbiological tests we should run.

“Now, that’s a real challenge for us,” he said, adding that although the idea was quite new in Sarawak or Malaysia, it was already widely used by other countries such as Korea, the US, Hong Kong, France and Canada to manage food waste and for animal feeds.

Food waste can be collected for composting.

Food waste can be collected for composting.

Helping the poor

Wee believed the WormingUp Programme could help poor people earn extra income, saying for the composting process, his team could provide bins and

tools to would-be PateeWorm breeders who could not afford these items.

The team, he added, would also pay breeders RM120 for every 10kg of larvae collected to breed flies at the farm — a process that would continue until the insect’s life cycle was completed.

The insects at pre-pupae stage can be harvested and sold to pet shops as feeds, especially for aquarium fish.

Wee said people could, in fact, breed PateeFlies at home as long as they had the know-how.

“We encourage people to breed PateeWorms and PateeFlies at home to help reduce food waste. It’s also a practice best started from home. We’re ready to provide consultation at very minimal fees because we are not here to make profit but create awareness of proper food waste management. The fees we collect will be used to cover our running costs,” he said.