It has been estimated that more than 50% of fish tissues including fins, heads, skin and viscera

are discarded as they are considered "wastes". Every year discards from the world's
fisheries exceed 20 million tons equivalent to 25% of the total production of marine fishery catch
[2,4] and include “non-target” species, fish processing wastes and by-products. (Caruso, G.,
2015)

The Philippines is one of the Asian countries that relies heavily on fish and fishery products
as sources of dietary animal proteins. (http://www.fftc.agnet.org/library.php?
func=view&id=20150729151517&type_id=4, Yap, E. E.)

The Philippines, with an island-dwelling population of more than 93 million and more than 7 100
islands, is a major fishing nation and the world’s second largest archipelagic State.

In 2012, the Philippines ranked among the major fish producing countries in the world with a total
production of 3.1 million tonnes of fish, crustaceans, mollusks and other aquatic animals. Aquaculture
contributed 790 900 tonnes, or 25.4 percent, to the total fish production. Much of its production is
consumed locally with per caput fish consumption amounting to 32.7 kg in 2011. In addition, the
Philippines is the world’s third largest producer of farmed seaweeds with a production of 1.8 million
tonnes in 2012. (http://www.fao.org/fishery/facp/PHL/en)

Fish processing wastes have a large

potential as an energy source. The increase in fish processing
wastes and the expansion of the renewable energy market mean
that fish processing wastes could play a part as a future source of
biofuels. The amount of solid waste generated in fish canning operations
is large as the amount of raw products converted into waste
can be as high as 50% by weight (Ward and Løes, 2011). Anaerobic
digestion could be a good approach for fish waste (FW) utilisation
because it can not only produce a biofuel but also a mineralised solid
residue that can be used as a bio-fertiliser with a high NPK concentration
Similarly, Mshandete et al. (2004)
tested the batch anaerobic digestion of fish waste obtained from a
landing beach at an feed to inoculum (F/I) ratio of 0.05–1.6 (on a
VS basis) and obtained the highest methane yield of 0.39 L/g added
VS at an F/I ratio of 0.05 (on a VS basis).
(Di9az et al., 2011). (Gopi Krishna Kafle a,1, Sang Hun Kim a,⇑, Kyung Ill Sung b, 2012)

Fish wastes have great potential as a source of high valued organic

carbon for methane production but also have limitation (high content of
ammonia nitrogen). Anaerobic treatment of fish wastes is possible with
co-digestion. The main issue for co-digestion process lies in balancing
several parameters in the co-substrate mixture: macro- and
micronutrients, C:N ratio, pH, toxic compounds, biodegradable organic
matter and dry matter.
The amount of fish wastes (by-products and by-catch) depends on many
factors: fish species, size,
season and catch methods, processing technique, local regulations, market,
etc. (
R. Tomczak-Wandzel1 and E. Levlin2,3, ND)