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Are larvae of the black soldier fly - Hermetia illucens - a financially viable

option for organic waste management in Costa Rica?

Conference Paper · January 2009

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ARE LARVAE OF THE BLACK SOLDIER
FLY– HERMETIA ILLUCENS – A
FINANCIALLY VIABLE OPTION FOR
ORGANIC WASTE MANAGEMENT IN
COSTA RICA?

STEFAN DIENER*, FLORIA ROA GUTIÉRREZ**, CHRISTIAN ZURBRÜGG*

AND KLEMENT TOCKNER*,°,°°
*
Eawag: Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology
**
Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica, Cartago, Costa Rica
°
Leibnitz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Mueggelseedamm
310, 12587 Berlin, Germany
°°
Institute of Biology, Free University Berlin, Takustrasse 3, 14195 Berlin,
Germany

SUMMARY: Current waste management in Costa Rica is by large dependant on the formal as
well as the informal private sector. Rural communities are almost entirely devoid of any sort of
regulated solid waste management system and in urban areas, inorganic waste recycling is
practised mostly by the informal sector, mainly at neighbourhood level, where waste pickers
rummage through waste bins and bags on the street. However, the large fraction of organic solid
waste (~55 % of the total waste) is still not recycled and generally remains in the waste stream,
i.e. it is either dumped into more or less controlled landfills or remains uncollected on the street.
Use of larvae of the black soldier fly, Hermetia illucens, offers a promising approach to
transform organic waste into a valuable product, thereby rendering separation and collection of
organic waste attractive. According to preliminary results, a sheltered area of 1 000 m2 is,

required to treat three tons (wet weight) of municipal organic waste per day. Such a treatment
plant would produce a daily prepupal harvest of ~150 kg (dry weight) worth USD 150 if sold as
aquacultural feed.

1. CURRENT WASTE MANAGEMENT POLICY IN COSTA RICA

Costa Rica’s generated municipal solid waste quantity has increased dramatically in the last few
years. While in 1991, the daily waste volume produced amounted to 0.47 kg/person, this figure
has almost doubled to 0.86 kg/person in 2006. Demographic growth, rising gross domestic
production and increasing numbers of tourists are expected to further raise the waste quantity to
1.04 kg/day/person (CYMA, 2007). In May 2008, the government of Costa Rica presented its
long awaited solid waste management action plan (PRESOL), which tackles the desolate waste

Proceedings Sardinia 2009, Twelfth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium
S. Margherita di Pula, Cagliari, Italy; 5 - 9 October 2009
© 2009 by CISA Publisher, Italy
 Sardinia 2009, Twelfth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium

management situation on five fronts: (i) technology, (ii) administration, (iii) institutional and
organisational area, (iv) education and awareness raising, and (v) economy of solid waste
management (CYMA, 2008b).
Since then, several communities have, among other aspects, assessed their current waste
situation, their costs and collection services. They have organised workshops to learn the
resident’s needs in a participatory approach (CYMA, 2008a). The citizens have identified
dissatisfactory collection services and reckless dumping as the main concerns, while the
PRESOL action plan focuses on recycling and final disposal. However, both parties have agreed
to place emphasis on education and awareness raising. The limited environmental awareness of
the population has constrained the efforts of municipalities to establishing sustainable waste
management services.
The current waste management efforts mainly rely on the activities of the formal and informal
private sectors, as well as on communal initiatives. Regulatory solid waste management
provisions are almost nonexistent in rural communities. Collection is often totally lacking, and
small neighbourhoods (10 to 20 families) have jointly agreed on a common dumping site, or
each family uses its own pit that is frequently set on fire to reduce the volume. In urban areas,
recycling is mostly practised by the informal sector, mainly at neighbourhood level, where waste
pickers rummage through waste bins and bags on the street, separating sellable waste materials
such as paper, metal, glass, and plastic. The waste collected by the municipality is discharged on
(more or less) sanitary landfills.

2. POTENTIAL APPROACHES

Based on the waste management steps depicting respective solid waste management levels and
capacities, as defined by Klampf-Pernold and Gelbmann (2006) (Figure 1), the PRESOL report
has identified the current waste management policy in rural areas as step 1 (i.e. uncontrolled
collection and disposal), and in urban areas as step 2 (i.e. controlled collection and disposal). The
report indicates how Costa Rica can be led through a development process aiming at upgrading
progressively its waste management levels to the next higher step, however, not necessarily
taking into account new or more sustainable approaches or treatment technologies. When
compared to other treatment technologies, the relatively low sanitary landfilling costs make it
difficult for the authorities to implement alternative treatment systems. For example, the
Municipality of San José charges only USD 0.01–0.02 per day for every meter a property adjoins
a street which receives a collection service (Municipalidad de San José, 2008). But this thought
applies only as long as waste is considered to have no value. The already well-established market
for sellable waste, such as discarded metal, glass, plastic, and paper, proves the existence of
waste recycling alternatives other than final disposal. However, reuse of the yet unexploited
organic fraction, accounting for 55% of the total MSW in Costa Rica, could offer profitable
opportunities.
Today, biomethanation and composting are probably the two best-known options to transform
organic waste material into a product of value instead of discarding it into open plots, on streets
or in rivers, where it attracts scavenging animals as well as disease spreading insects. An
example of a successful organic waste management approach has been introduced in the City of
Siquirres, where fruit vendors, supermarkets and vendors at the farmers’ market have joined
together at the initiative of the municipality and Comité Agrícola Cantonal (local network of
agricultural stakeholders) to treat their organic refuse in a joint compost unit. Experience and
evidence, however, show that the process of separation and treatment also involves costs.
Revenues from the sale of compost cannot cover production costs since competitive prices are
set too low or because markets and adequate demand are not developed sufficiently yet. Running
 Sardinia 2009, Twelfth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium

Figure 1. Development of waste management steps. Adapted and translated from Klampfl-
Pernold and Gelbmann (2006)

a small-scale organic waste business, comparable to glass or metal recycling is considered a

financially more attractive option than municipal waste management. Therefore, a private sector,
with stronger focus in business opportunities and marketing approaches has to be in the centre of
attention (Fluitman, 2000; Wang et al., 2008).

3. WASTE TREATMENT BY LARVAE OF THE BLACK SOLDIER FLY, HERMETIA

ILLUCENS

The black soldier fly larvae (BSF), Hermetia illucens offer a promising opportunity to develop
the collection and treatment of organic waste as a source of income for small entrepreneurs. The
larvae of this non-pest fly not only feed voraciously on decaying matter, thus reducing
dramatically the dry matter content by up to 40%, but generate an additional valuable product,
the prepupae. Prepupae contain 40% crude protein and 30% fat (Diener et al., 2009; St-Hilaire et
al., 2007). Due to their migratory habit, the last larval stage (the so-called prepupae) can easily
be harvested and used as a valuable feedstuff in aquaculture and chicken farming. Key
prerequisites for implementing this “biotechnology” are, however, favourable climatic
conditions and use of non-toxic organic waste.
Though the waste management capacity of Hermetia illucens was studied as early as the
1970s (Booth & Sheppard, 1984; Tingle et al., 1975), its waste treatment and production
potential is yet to be used on a commercial scale. Two different treatment unit designs have been
proposed so far, both using a migration ramp as the main functional principle. The “tray design”
 Sardinia 2009, Twelfth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium

has its origin in the early research on H. illucens to inhibit breeding of the housefly in poultry
litter, where black soldier fly larvae grow in concrete beds beneath layer hen cages collecting the
poultry manure (Sheppard et al., 1994). A rectangular concrete tray with ramps (30–35°
inclination) on two sides lead into a canal (e.g. PVC pipe) for prepupae collection (Sheppard et
al., 2002). The “bucket-design” is simple in its function principle but sophisticated in its
production. The installation consists of a prefabricated round plastic bucket with an integrated
spiral ramp on its inner wall and a hole on top, allowing prepupae to crawl up and eventually fall
into a collecting container. The lid contains holes for air circulation and allows females to enter
and lay their eggs (www.thebiopod.com).
Its simple construction and use of local construction material prompted us to focus our
research on the “tray design”. Especially in low and middle-income countries, these are crucial
factors when it comes to feasibility, acceptability and subsequent wide dissemination and
replication of the technology.

4. CALCULATIONS OF A BSF TREATMENT PLANT IN COSTA RICA

Preliminary laboratory results in Switzerland helped to determine optimal feeding loads

(Diener et al., 2009) and provided the basis for developing a pilot plant in Costa Rica. According
to our calculations, an area of ~1100 m2 is required for treating three tons (wet weight) of
municipal organic waste per day. The actual treatment area, containing the larvae, accounts for
half of the required area (Table 1). In a first step, organic material is collected either by
independent waste pickers or permanent employees. The material is split into usable organic
material, sellable inorganic material (glass, metal, plastic, and paper), and the remainder. The
organic fraction is then added to the larval trays according to a defined operating plan. The
additional care of the larval beds (e.g. turning of material, watering) and type of post-treatment
of the residue are subject to ongoing research in the pilot plant set up in Costa Rica. Harvested
prepupae are killed and washed in boiling water, and dried before packaging.
This treatment scale could achieve a daily prepupal harvest of about 150 kg (dry weight). The
prepupae, comparable in protein content and digestibility to fishmeal (Bondari & Sheppard,
1987; St-Hilaire et al., 2007), could be sold for USD 1000/ton (current market value for
fishmeal, www.globefish.org) and yield an annual revenue of USD ~55 000. Since demand for
fishmeal is steadily increasing and wild fishing grounds are decreasing, a price increase is most
likely. Due to this increase in demand and price, other sources of animal protein – such as the
described prepupae – will most probably become an interesting competitive product.
The investment costs required to build such a treatment plant in Costa Rica amount to USD
~85 000. The plant could be operated by five permanent workers, i.e. one university graduate
with management skills (minimum wage: USD 530/month) and four trained workers willing to
handle organic waste and insect larvae (minimum wage: USD 350/month). However, these
salaries should be raised gradually until they are at least double to remunerate the efforts
required and experience gained. The annual operating costs would amount to USD 35, 700.
Yet, one crucial aspect is the quality of the feedstock, in other words how little inorganic
waste it contains. This has an influence not only on the quality of the end product, but also on the
efforts (e.g. cost) required to sort the waste before it is processed. To improve this aspect, major
efforts will have to be made in information campaigns for households. Waste separation at the
source has no tradition in Costa Rica. Particularly separation of the organic fraction within the
households faces serious obstacles. The attraction of houseflies and unpleasant odour from
rotting waste may hinder people from using a separate waste bin. Distribution of adequate waste
containers for the households and a reliable and frequent collection schedule are key factors to
enhance waste segregation at source.
 Sardinia 2009, Twelfth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium

Table 1. Required space and estimated costs for processing three tons of municipal organic waste
per day through the black soldier fly larvae feeding activity in Costa Rica
Required area Costs
Type Area Type Costs (USD)
Treatment area Investment costs
Sorting area 40 m2 Land 20 000
Storage of rejects 30 m2 Collection truck 20 000
Storage of recyclables 10 m2 Equipment 5 000
Treatment beds 600 m2 Infrastructure 40 000
Residue maturation area 150 m2 Total investment costs 85 000
Screening and bagging of residue 35 m2
Storage area 25 m2 Running costs per year
Killing and drying of prepupae 25 m2 Salaries 23 200
Fly colony 15 m2 Expendables 1 000
Sub-total of treatment area 930 m2 Telephone, electricity and water 500
Facilities Training 1 000
Office 16 m2 Maintenance of infrastructure 2 000
Sanitary facilities 10 m2 Fuel and maintenance of truck 8 000
Coffee break area 16 m2 Total running costs 35 700
Tool shed 10 m2
Water supply point 4 m2
Additional areal requirements
Vehicles parking 30 m2
Green buffer zone 50 m2
Total area 1066 m2

The current research project in Costa Rica (until September 2009) centres on issues relating to
operation and design of a BSF treatment facility. Acceptance of this technology and
marketability of the prepupae as a product of value are beyond the scope of this study and
require further investigations.

REFERENCES

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