“You are men, why are you picking-up waste?” – It is what women at the market said to Danh and Huy- the two youths who love the environment and desire to collect enough organic wastes daily to nourish calcium grubs (larvae of black soldier flies) at An Phu commune, Tuy Hoa City, Phu Yen.
Calcium grubs is another name for larvae of black soldier flies. In the 25-30 days cycle at the larvae form, this specie of grub consumes a mass amount of organic wastes, then extrudes its wastes into a good type of fertilizer. Grubs are not picky about food, they can eat excess food, savoury food, excess fruits, vegetables… but cannot eat fishbone, dried leaves, tree roots, living plants…. From calcium grubs 4 products from calcium grubs may be obtained: the entire grubs used for breeding, grubs dung released can be used for agricultural fertilizers (preferred by cumquat gardens), black grubs cocoon can be used for houses for swiftlets, grubs if bio-hydrolyzed and anaerobic composting will be released into liquid to make fertilizer.
The model has been processed, deployed and maintained during more than 2 years by Danh and Huy. Every day, the two people split up to collect waste at the market. Sometimes, the two people also buy bean paste and beer paste so that grubs have enough food and better fertilizer quality. The madams are too acquainted with gathering organic wastes and waiting for the two boys to collect. However, due to lack of personnel, unable to find partners, the two boys had to narrow the model down gradually since there is not enough manpower to maintain collecting and nourishing a big amount of grubs.
Currently, the model has 5 larval rearing cells, each with an area of 1m2x0.8m, built of bricks and covered with a roof to protect the grubs. Four larval cells can consume an amount of waste that can be collected at An Phu market a day (100kg of organic waste per day) (Tuy Hoa market discharges 2 tons of trash per day, there are 126 large markets in the province currently). Huy concerned: Making this model we spent effort, money, but couldn’t earn enough money. Only hope for partners, supporters to continue the model.
According to the report by DONRE, each year the province had to spend billions of VND to compensate for the waste fee. Thus, this model is a potential solution to decompose the amount of organic waste- the genre of waste which accounts for the greatest proportion when released to the environment.
