Page 273 - AWSAR 2.0

This emerging novel technology has a great potential to harvest waste into useful protein sources and is a sustainable solution for Solid Waste Management. She being a civil engineer, initially,struggled to
understand these flies as it is
quite difficult to rear them. But,
fortunately, her supervisor had
a funded project from Bill and
Melinda Gates foundation and
BIRAC wherein they treated
human feces using BSF larvae.
They collected human feces
from a school hostel and
provided it to BSF larvae. BSF
larvae quite efficiently treated
and reduced its volume which than can be a rich source of biodiesel with the capability to generate revenue. They also studied performance of BSF larvae on co-composting of human feces with food waste, wherein they got wonderful results with huge reduction in waste. The project opened up avenues to resolve the burning problem of open defecation in India.
Then, in 2018, her supervisor was awarded a project under swachhta action plan wherein they successfully treated unsegregated municipal solid waste at lab scale using BSF larvae. The mixed nature of the unsegregated MSW in India makes it a major challenge to adopt sustainable waste treatment technology with a good cost-benefit ratio. Worldwide BSF larvae has been explored as an efficient agent for biological waste treatment, while for India since we have unsegregated waste the
Ms. Debasree Purkayastha || 249
whole idea was to look into whether they can perform well with such kind of waste. From this study, it can be suggested that BSFL treatment technology has huge potential for
treatment of unsegregated Indian MSW. BSFL can reduce organic fraction of the waste to such an extent that the remaining waste after BSFL treatment is easy to segregate and recycle ensuring a close loop waste management. The protein and fat content of obtained BSFL biomass opens up avenues for its utilization as animal feed and biodiesel,
hence generating revenue. The metal, glass, rubber and synthetics can be segregated and recycled creating further source of revenue. Altogether BSFL treatment technology has a huge potential to be a sustainable solution to complex unsegregated Indian MSW.At present, in IIT Roorkee, they have a BSF rearing facility with a daily BSF larvae generation rate of 5000.
She has presented her work at several Indian and two international conferences. Plans are afoot to look into commercializationand further realization of this insect-based technology in India. It has been a wonderful journey for her but there are miles to go before she can see her country as swachch Bharat. She believes where there is a will there is a way and, definitely, one day India will be the cleanest country in the world.
BSFL can reduce organic fraction of the waste to such an extent that the remaining waste after BSFL treatment is easy to segregate and recycle ensuring a close loop waste management.