A team from Australia's Macquarie University has begun engineering flies to take on the world's waste crisis. The modified insects are based on the common black soldier fly and have the ability to eat a range of organic waste-from food scraps to industrial byproducts.
In a new paper published in the journal Communications Biology, the scientists have mentioned that beyond becoming a means for waste disposal, these flies can also be used in the production of some valuable substances, such as oils for lubricants and biofuels and high-quality animal feed. Besides that, decreasing the content of organic waste in landfills should also significantly reduce methane emissions, a dangerous greenhouse gas causing climate change.
This research holds immense potential to change the concept of waste management and move towards a far more sustainable future.
The authors of the study mentioned that "management of organic waste is a major global challenge. Currently, 40-70% of organic waste is disposed of in landfills, where it is tightly compacted to economise space. This leads to the anaerobic microbial decomposition of organic waste into methane, a greenhouse gas (GHG) that is 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide."
"Consequently, the solid waste sector is estimated to be responsible for 5% of global annual CO2-equivalent emissions, with the majority of this due to the methane generated from landfilling organic waste."
"Insects will be the next frontier for synthetic biology applications, dealing with some of the huge waste-management challenges we haven't been able to solve with microbes," Dr Kate Tepper, the lead author of the paper, said.
Black soldier flies are already valued in waste management where they consume commercial organic wastes before being processed as 'insect biomass' into foods for domestic pets and commercial chicken and fish farmers.
But the Macquarie team believes genetic engineering could extend the usefulness of the black soldier fly, enabling them to turn waste inputs into enhanced animal feeds or valuable industrial raw materials.
Engineering insects to make industrial enzymes and lipids that are not used in food supply chains will expand the types of organic wastes that can be used, which adds utility to lower-grade organic wastes.
What do black soldiers fly?
According to Macquarie University, the black soldier fly (BSF), Hermetia illucens, is a widely used and mass-produced insect that fulfils an important role in both the management of organic waste and as a component of animal feed formulations. They also have significant potential as a platform for converting organic waste into high-value proteins and lipids for the production of biofuels. Applying synthetic biology to BSF provides even more potential for improvement through the generation of transgenic BSF to enhance animal feed, produce and fine-tune high-value industrial biomolecules, and expand their waste conversion capabilities.
