SCU Buzz | The Southern Cross University podcast

Are flies the solution to our plastic problem?

Can food waste become biodegradable plastic? Researchers at Southern Cross University, Dr Lachlan Yee and Dr Owen Hogan, are investigating if black soldier flies could be the key to reducing organic waste while creating a sustainable form of bioplastic.

This project is part of the ZeroWaste Research Cluster.

The musical introduction to this podcast was written and performed by Alako Myles.

Duration:: 31m
Broadcast on:: 22 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

(upbeat music) - Hey everyone, welcome to SCU Buzz. My name is River, and today we're gonna be talking about flies. Dr. Lachlan Yi and Dr. Owen Hogan are embarking on a new research project into black soldier flies and their commercial value. From creating sustainable plastic to regenerative farming, we'll be exploring the financial revenues of black soldier flies. Welcome to the podcast, it's great to have you both. - Thank you very much, glad to be here. - Yeah, great, thanks for the invite. - So, to kick us off Lachlan, would you be able to tell us a little bit about black soldier flies and what exactly makes them so special? - Sure, so black soldier flies are just yet another species of fly on our planet and they belong to the family of soldier flies. Now, the way most people encounter them is in the home compost or in the worm farm and you might notice these little segmented larvae like maggots, all right, and they're crawling around there. But they're really special because they can consume just about any organic food, so waste food that the humans generate, and they do it at a very rapid rate. So, for example, just the eggs that would make up a grain of rice, when they mature to the larvae, they can consume a pineapple day. And the male and females can produce many grains of rice worth of eggs. So, you can see why production facilities across the world now, just upscale, what we see in our home compost, and they're able to generate kilograms, thousands of kilograms of protein and some of the really healthy byproducts that come from this soldier fly farming. - Wow, so you could say that black soldier flies are probably one of the most sustainable forms of waste facilitation. - It certainly seems so, yes, yeah. So, it's one of those recycling systems that we have that has the ability to upscale, what we call upscale. In other words, the inputs are relatively cheap, waste organic food, a lot of people throw this out, put it into landfill, maybe feed it to their chooks at best. But we can produce valuable products, such as protein that gets fed to fish and poultry, and as well as these biodegradable plastics that interest me because I come from a chemistry and plastic research background. - Right, so farming of black soldier flies has become quite popular, would you be able to tell us about the black soldier fly farming industry and what benefits that farming industry provides? - Sure, across the globe, we see farming at all different scales, including myself, how I got started, which is just a home little hobby farm. My colleague here, Owen, has also got a hobby farm, and we're building a small farm here at Southern Cross University. Right through to large scale factories, we see in places like New Zealand, India, Canada. And the main benefits are the byproducts that these soldier flies afford, someone who does farming, particularly at scale. So one of the number one products that come out of soldier fly farming is protein. Okay, so being able to feed animals, a high protein diet is essential for their health. And traditionally, people have gotten this protein from soy, for example, but soldier fly larvae is much higher percentage. So for example, your typical larvae has about 33% protein. This is a lot more than your average protein bar that you buy in the shop, even for us humans. In addition to the protein, you have what's called lipids or oils, fats. Okay, and the extension of that work can be to produce a biodiesel, or at least a fat source for, again, the animals. Then you have the chitin, which is the biodegradable polymer that I'm interested in. That's the exoskeleton of the insect. And finally, even the fly poo is useful. This is yet another form of fertilizer, much like worm farming and the worm castings you get there. So what do these factories look like? How many flies are we talking about when we're imagining these fly factories? Oh, so at full scale where you have factories, it's millions upon millions of these flies. You see these amazing photos of, oh, sorry, and film of the handlers and the scientists. They're walking into massive sheds, and they're just surrounded by these flies. They're harmless, okay? The flies don't sting, they don't have any operating mouth parts that would harm any humans. So you can freely walk in amongst them. But as I said, because there are millions of scales, you can produce millions upon, yeah, tens of millions of eggs, and then that just plows through your organic waste. So yeah, at scale, it's something to behold. And one of our aims is to try and build something up like this in the Northern Rivers through the recirculator program here at Southern Cross University. Wow. Oh, and you're working on a research project at the moment. Would you be able to tell us a little bit about that? Absolutely, yes. We're very excited about this project. Myself and Lachlan and Professor Nigel Andrew have joined forces to look at Black Soldier Fly farming and larvae production. And we're particularly interested in deriving a type of bioplastic from the larvae shell. It's derived from chitin. And we want to look at particularly the scientific process along with that, so the bioconversion process. But I'm a business researcher, so I'm interested in the viability of this. And as Lachlan mentioned, there's a number of farms around the world who are operating at scale for various reasons, mostly to provide feedstock for poultry and fish. So for farming livestock. But we're also starting to see production of biofuels and obviously byproducts such as fresh, with this fertilizer for soils. And then an increasing interest in the production of bioplastics. And the reason for that, as we know, is that synthetic plastics are made from non-renewable sources. They tend to take a long time to break down in the environment. And when they do, they break down into micro particles. And we're finding micro plastics everywhere, including in our own human bodies. And so therefore, we're looking at black soldier fly larvae as a renewable source. But also, there's a certain amount of circularity to this type of farming because they consume huge amounts of organic waste. And that's important, that we don't send organic waste to landfills. And we're able to have those organic waste consumed. And therefore, then we have this various or a range of applications for black soldier fly larvae. So my interest as part of this team is to look at that commercial viability of producing bioplastics from the larvae. And then obviously seeing what application we can make with those bioplastics. And then also, what's its level of biodegradability? Will it break down safely in the environment as well? - So what is the process of harvesting the bioplastics from the larvae? - Yeah, sure. Well, I come from a chemistry background and when you survey the various methods, there are a lot of methods there seems to be able to extract the chitin. Some of these methods have been developed because chitin originally was sourced from seafood, in particular prawns, lobsters and crab shells. So this is another form of chitin that people would have encountered already. People don't usually like to chew the prawn shell because it's tough, yeah, but I do because it's got chitin in it, so I love that. And they use these chemical techniques, just pure chemicals, basic chemicals, such as hydrochloric acid, sodium hydroxide. These are chemicals you find in general labs around the place. However, the researchers are realizing that these are harmful chemicals, so you're generating waste as well. And often higher temperatures are required in the order of 90 degrees close to boiling. Therefore, some of the researchers are working on other, more, I'd like to say, friendly ways to extract the chitin. They're using nature's chemicals, such as enzymes, and they're using co-solvents like glycerol, all right, to lower the temperature and have more friendly type reaction conditions in which to extract the chitin. So we're looking to explore some of those here at Southern Cross as well. In fact, my student right now, Risa Otake, she's actually drying one of our first batches of chitis ant right in the oven right now. So yeah, we're very keen to analyze that to see how we're going in actually producing this bioplastic. - So what are some of the commercial applications of the bioplastic? What kind of products can we see coming out of its uses? - Sure, the bioplastic themselves chitin and its derivative chitosan, which is more water soluble, have largely been seen, applied in the field of wound dressings. Okay, so it's very biocompatible. Like I said, you can basically eat a prawn shell and be fine as long as you don't have seafood allergy. And you also see, because it's a biopolymer, very compatible with, for example, our pharmaceuticals and drugs, we see a slowed drug delivery method in humans as well. And there are other researchers that are looking at all sorts of interesting properties, such as antioxidants, antibacterial. So yeah, we're very excited because these are all valuable plastics and products, right? And to take waste food from, I mean, you've seen it in a restaurant, people eat half their plate. And that food cannot go anywhere generally, unless maybe the restaurant owner has chooks, right? So that could perhaps be put in a bin on the side and then taken off to a soldier's profile. And after some process, you've got wound dressings and bandages, how fantastic is that? - That's pretty amazing. It sounds like it kind of fits into this idea of a circular economy system that we're looking at in Lismore. Would you be able to tell me a bit about what the future is of this project, potentially entering into that circular economy system? - Certainly, so what my particular part of the project is to look at how circular this really is. And in fact, going a little bit beyond that, it's regenerative properties as well. So as a regenerative business model, so therefore being able to not only deal with waste as well and reduce waste, particularly diverting organic waste to landfill, 'cause we know that creates greenhouse gases and a lot of them, but also looking at the efficiency of resource usage. And then in some way, perhaps giving back to nature, because that's the idea of regenerative agriculture is being able to regenerate nature as we undertake this business. And we do see black soldier fly farming as a bit of a hope in that space. We certainly can reduce the amount of organic waste going to landfill. They're very good at that. We are looking into various applications of different products that could be derived from black soldier fly larvae. And we're also looking at how much in terms of the process, the bio conversion process gives back to nature in terms of say soil fertilizer to improve soils as a source of protein as well. One of the applications we haven't talked about yet, which is being researched is about a protein additive in human food as well, dare I say. So don't think about eating larvae directly, but perhaps as a source of protein that might potentially replace meat, for instance, things like that. - Yeah, it's funny that you say that, 'cause I was gonna ask you a question about it entering into the food industry, 'cause I know I've seen a couple of high protein energy bars from crickets. And I know in other parts of the world, people do eat insects as a very sustainable source of food. So that's quite exciting to hear that it could enter into that food market. - Yeah, it's highly possible, and there's certainly a lot of research going on. It's an interesting area, because I recently spent some time in Italy, and I went and met with colleagues from Regioh and Amelia University, and they were looking at different applications of black soldier fly larvae. We're seeing research coming out of Scandinavia, the US, Canada, New Zealand, even in Australia as well as CSIRO, are involved in a number of projects as well. So it's an emerging area, and because of that, there is some entrepreneurial potential for different organizations or businesses and startups to get involved in this as well. And that's the idea of this project, is to see the potential of that and determine whether there is viable application of this in the market, and at what scale you need to be in order to produce particular products and find a market for them and to be profitable as well. - So how does black soldier fly farming fit in with regenerative farming principles? - Yeah, absolutely. It's certainly an emerging area, as I said. What it does is creates this level of circularity going on. So what we have is waste coming from human consumption, and we know that it's really important to start separating organic waste from other materials at source, really, as even from households, from restaurants, wherever a lot of organic waste is produced, also on farms where organic waste is produced or sugar cane factories as well. So there's that separating of organic waste from other synthetic materials like plastic, for instance, and then collecting that waste and then sending that through a process of being able to be converted in some way to another type of valuable resource. So we're getting a renewable source in organic waste, being converted into another valuable product that can be used, and hopefully that that product can then be recycled, reused, or whatever the case may be down the road. Along that process in terms of regeneration, what we want to understand more of is how regenerative is that along the way. We do believe from preliminary research and research from around the world that it does have regenerative properties because we're able to create these. Firstly, it breaks down waste into valuable source materials, but it also creates byproducts that can be used as say fertilizers, things like that, for soil regeneration, which is very good, then we're also seeing perhaps that the products, once they've been applied, can either be composted again or recycled in some way that's safe and regenerative for the environment as well. - And so when speaking about agriculture, there is definitely a place I think that that fits in when we think about greenhouse gas emissions and its contribution to climate change. Where does black soldier fly farming sit within that kind of a scope of greenhouse gas emissions and the future of our planet? - Yeah, fantastic question. And one of the parts of this study we're looking at is a life cycle assessment to understand what types of emissions are actually generated from this type of process as well. There's been a few studies done and it shows that there's quite a low emission, per kilogram of, or per tonne, I should say, of black soldier fly larvae bioconversion, but that's very early stages. I think I've only seen one paper so far, just recently shared with me by Lachlan actually, that looks into that process. So we have researchers on campus here at Lismore that can look into life cycle assessment, which is looking at that, how much emissions are created just from the process and how that might compare with other bioconversion processes as well. - Yeah, so Dr. Aaron Thornton is renowned for his ability to do life cycle assessment. He's part of the recirculated team. But we're very grateful to have Professor Nigel Andrew on our team as well. So Nigel is an entomologist, so a scientist in the area of insects. And he actually has kit equipment that can individually measure the carbon dioxide to come off one larvae. It's kind of like a little breathing mask that he can put on one larvae and measure them while they're chomping away on their meal. And so we could possibly use data from his study to measure the exact question that you're asking, that CO2 contribution multiplied by the larvae there. And then of course, we would need to compare that to just compost without a soldier fly there. Are we contributing? And then finally make the comparison back to the organic food that went to landfill straight, and they collected the biogas from a landfill. So what sort of comparisons there? Yeah, great question. And that would probably be how the research would plan out. - So you both mentioned that there's a very small scale hobby farm if you will here at SCU with the black soldier flies. Are there plans to expand that here at the university? - Yeah, most definitely. So the hobby farm was essentially bringing in enough flies for our student to work with. So she's looking at, interestingly, the diets of the soldier flies. And she calls herself the mother of the flies. In other words, she's raising them on the most nutritional diet they can to get started in life, much like we do our human babies. And then we're looking to see if that actually gives them a flying start and do they then maybe chomp through more food when they're in their adolescent phase in quotation marks. Now, with the farm size that we have here at the university, it's not quite enough for-- well, it's only just barely enough to produce flies for one researcher. But we want to grow our group. So we're multiplying that. We're hitting this on two fronts. We're looking at commercially produced farm pods. They're called biopods. But there are a lot of designs, such as Purdue University, has this little homemade design. So I literally went down to Bunnings the other day, got a whole bunch of material, and we're just going to build our own farm from there. And then eventually we want to upscale. We see examples of people operating in shipping containers, for example, in my good colleague here, associate professor David Newell. He's got his whole frog farm in shipping containers. Why not a fly farm as well? And then eventually, yeah, it'd be great to upscale. One of our aims is to just look at consuming food, perhaps in the science faculty. And he left over food in the staff room. And then upscaling from there, perhaps taking care of the waste food from our plaza. And then in turn, the whole campus. That'd be a great story to share when we make it there. To be able to handle all of the organic waste on our campus, it doesn't have to leave the border. And we're producing valuable stock. Are there any limitations on the organic waste that the Black Sultrify flies or larvae consume? I know that with my compost bin at home, for example, there's a new set of guidelines for what can go in there and what can't go in there in terms of their processing methods of that. So are there any specifications for the organic waste that's being brought to the Black Sultrifies? Yeah, look, the food that's being fed to Black Sultrifies across the world is a huge variety. Essentially, if it's edible by any other species on the planet, that's a green light, right through to the less palatable feces, all right? So there are some farmers, for example, that's how they're able to process a lot of the animal waste that is produced on their farm. We here don't do that. We just use only food stock. But yeah, the questions you ask are very pertinent questions. And certainly, if say, like my colleague mentioned, that the protein needed to go into human consumption, these questions would have to be solved, absolutely. There is ongoing research now by some groups in the world that seem to indicate that the gut flora within the actual larvae is able to destroy quite a number of pathogens. So they're looking at that as well. Yeah, like I said, the Sultrifies can eat feces and they're not phased at all. They don't seem to get sick or anything. So they're looking into that as being possible sources of antimicrobials and medicines that perhaps the humans could use. That's incredible. That's quite exciting. I was going to jump in and say that we're reasonably lucky in Australia. We can actually experiment and feed Black Sultrifies larvae with a wide range of material. But having mentioned this before, we spent time in Italy, they're actually restricted under legislation about what they can feed Black Sultrify larvae. And so they actually have to go and buy discarded food that meets health regulations. So I was in the Regio Amelia area, which is sort of the food bowl of Italy. They were going to tomato farmers and all sorts of different farmers and buying their waste, but under strict conditions in order to even just experiment with Black Sultrify larvae. So they were quite jealous of us in Australia who have more open or less restrictive guidelines around that. And that's interesting in terms of an opportunity in Australia because you could have your own backyard Black Sultrify farm going and chewing up your organic waste. We know that families generate quite a lot of organic waste. I think Lachlan, how much per year in terms of organic waste per Australian? - Yeah, so there was a 2022 waste report produced here in Australia. And it turns out every man, woman and child in Australia produces half a ton of organic waste per year of which there seems to be approximately half of that. So now a quarter ton edible by Sultrify's. So yeah, it's almost like a responsibility that we probably should be looking into something like this to lessen our footprint. You mentioned our footprint before. That's just our own footprint from food. - Yeah. - And what we see from setting up a shipping container, portable perhaps even on the back of a truck. And we know this happens already in New South Wales. There's a farm that's portable. It's relocatable and replicable at certain scale. And that's what we want to understand. Shipping container, size, how much organic waste can it consume? What can it consume? What can happen out of the process? What can we derive in terms of valuable products? And what can we do with those? And we're looking at say remote communities as well. Can that be a small business for a remote community? Set up their own Black Sultrify farm at a certain scale that potentially could be relocatable as well. But we're looking at replicable and relocatable as well as a potential business for a small business. - Fantastic. So you mentioned this a bit earlier. You're both from very different parts of the university. In Lachlan, you work in the Faculty of Science and Engineering and Owen, you work in the Faculty of Business, Law and Arts. How did this partnership come about and how did you meet each other and embark on this journey together? - Sure. So there is a group in Australia, AMPC. And so they look after the meat industry in Australia. But what they wanted to do was look at their plastic footprint of producing meat here in Australia. And so they offered me to apply for some funding to do some research in this area. Now, my understanding is that industry practices generally want to change when there's an economical driver. In other words, can they change their process without costing them too much money or even better still, can they make money by changing to a more in quotation marks, greener process. So given that money isn't a strong sort of mind, I went looking for an academic that is strong in money. And I found Dr. Owen Hogan. And so we worked on that project together, found some really nice ways that Australian red meat, manufacturing can lessen their plastic footprint. And so this was an extension and an opportunity to work together again. So here we go again. - Yeah, it was quite fortuitous because Lachlan started talking to me about black soldier flies. And I thought he was talking about science fiction, to be honest. And I was a bit of what is going on. And some events converged because I'd been given a compost bin that got taken over by black soldier flies for Christmas, which is a no-no for people who are trying to compost and create soil for their veggie garden because they'll consume the organic waste before it becomes a compost. Although you can still derive a compost from it, but they like consuming it. And he's telling me about his science fiction activities in the on campus. And then I'm starting to work with some colleagues in Italy who are researching black soldier fly farming as well. And so we thought this was a nice extension from the work we'd done with the red meat industry because of its ability to produce bioplastics. And that's an emerging research area, as we said. And there's potential for us to understand how can that be applied in the soft packaging space. I have seen the movie The Fly. There's no plan to DNA splice with these guys. We're going to keep the humans and the flies quite separate. So we are grounded in reality here. That's good to know. But it's all about building capacity for the university as well. We've got this space where we're starting to work in the circular economy. And this is just another aspect of our zero waste research cluster headed up by Professor Dirk Ehrler. And that we can build capacity around understanding how potentially insects can help in circularity. - So I have one last question for you both. For listeners who want to know more about this project and its future, where can they access information about the future of this project and where it's going? - Well, at the moment, they'll have to contact us directly. But I'm certainly happy to field any questions from the public directly via email. And I'm sure as would Loughlin. As I said, we've really commenced a journey here from sort of hobby farm into research, very valuable research going on to expand the capacity of that research. And so we are hoping through this project to create more awareness. And then to obviously try to look at some more funding to upscale what we're doing and grow the research facility. So definitely at the moment, direct contact is the best way to find out about the project from us and to learn more about what even general citizens can do in terms of black soldier flies. - Yeah, listeners can reach us through the university website. So Sun Cross University website. You can look up the zero waste cluster research area. You can also look at us through the risk circulator area, which is a large government funding that we have to address waste here in the Northern Rivers area. And we have our research profiles here at the university, which can be looked up. So yeah, I'm apparently also Googleable and Facebook as well. So if you want to find me there, I'm pretty sure it's the same for Owen. - Fantastic. Well, Lachlan, Owen, thank you both so much for being here today. It's been a fantastic conversation. And I'm really excited to see the future of this project. - Thank you. - Thanks for having us. - Yeah. (upbeat music) - We would like to acknowledge the wishable, viable people of Bundjalung Country as the traditional owners of this land. We would like to acknowledge and pay our respects elders past, present and emerging.