Use of Earthworm Biotechnology for the Management of Effluents from Intensively Housed Livestock

1989 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 72-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roy Hartenstein ◽  
Michael S. Bisesi

With a rapidly expanding world population, growing use of intensive animal husbandry, and increasingly stringent waste disposal legislation, the problem of disposing of livestock effluent is already severe. This article discusses, both qualitatively and quantitatively, how such organic waste can be effectively disposed of on a large scale by systematically managing the destructive and productive activities of earthworms.

1998 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 193-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Curt Forsberg

During a few decades, many fresh and marine water areas have been seriously affected by eutrophication, due to increasing discharges of phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) from modern society. The aim of this paper is to discuss the policies that are used and have been suggested to reduce eutrophication, and the factors counteracting these efforts. Policy options to reduce the fluxes of nutrients from point and non-point sources are summarized. A number of processes and mechanisms counteract the control measures taken so far, namely: the growing world population, the increasing urbanization, the intensive land independent animal production, the over-consumption of N and P, the emissions of N to the atmosphere, and the losses of P from P-enriched sediments. It is concluded that the driving force for eutrophication, the losses of nutrients from food production, organic waste, sewage, sludge and ashes can be expected to increase during the coming decades, as the world population continues to grow. Strong policies are needed to promote birth control, and to stop over-consumption of N (animal protein) and unnecessary intake of P (food additives). There is a number of barriers to overcome to reduce large-scale eutrophication, but also a lot of space for new policies and innovation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-229
Author(s):  
Rohma Septiawati ◽  
Devi Astriani ◽  
Moch Agus Ariffianto

  Law on National Development Planning System (Number 25/2004) mandates that Development planning must refer to the consideration that the goal of development of all government levels is the same, namely the welfare of the community. Empowerment is a concept to give people greater responsibility for how to do work. The potential of Sukaratu village consists of agriculture, livestock, tourism objects, handicrafts, cultivation and plantations. Among these potentials, the authors take the economic empowerment potential of cultivating black soldier fly maggot as an alternative ingredients for fish feed and reducing organic waste, so that it can increase the income of the people of Sukaratu. The research method used is qualitative and quantitative research; observation and interviews in an effort to obtain data. The results showed that the potential of Sukaratu village consisted of agriculture, animal husbandry, tourism objects, handicrafts, cultivation and plantations, the potential of human resources in terms of age and education was good, but in terms of business creativity and business skills, need to be improved. Maggot cultivation can reduce organic waste. The capital is not large enough because it only requires terraced media and houses that are given nets for broodstock to lay eggs.  


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-12
Author(s):  
J.B. Zhang ◽  
J.K. Tomberlin ◽  
M.M. Cai ◽  
X.P. Xiao ◽  
L.Y. Zheng ◽  
...  

The larvae of the black soldier fly (BSF), Hermetia illucens L., are commonly associated with decaying organic wastes. Over the past 15 years, investigators in China have conducted extensive research exploring the use of BSF larvae to recycle organic materials as a means to protect the environment, while producing products of value, such as protein and bioenergy. Initial efforts were based on a BSF strain from the USA. However, since then, H. illucens strains from specimens collected in Hubei and Guangdong Provinces have been established and used as models to explore the use of this species in sustainable agriculture. China has played an instrumental role in developing an in-door breeding method using a quartz-iodine lamp rather than depend on natural sunlight. This discovery has allowed the establishment of in-door BSF colonies in regions throughout the world where abiotic conditions (i.e. cold temperatures) are preventative. Researchers in China paved the way for using microbes as a means to enhance BSF production including, enhancing BSF egg-laying as well as waste reduction. Furthermore, bacteria from BSF gut or waste can be cultured and used to promote BSF growth, shorten conversion time, and enhanced conversion efficacy. Recent efforts have demonstrated BSF larvae can degrade antibiotics as well as suppress noxious odours in livestock manure. Due to the efforts of research on BSF in China, numerous companies that recycle organic waste at a large scale (>20 tonnes waste digested/day), have been established. Resulting products include insect powder, and live BSFL that can be used as animal feed ingredients for livestock (e.g. eels and frogs), while protecting the environment. Future work will decipher the mechanisms regulating BSF larval conversion of organic waste so that the system can be optimised. However, efforts are still needed at the government level to establish quality assurance standards if this process is truly to become established as an industry in China.


2011 ◽  
Vol 250-253 ◽  
pp. 1001-1006 ◽  
Author(s):  
De Zhen Chen ◽  
Cui Jie Geng ◽  
Wen Zhou Sun

Evaluation indexes system has been put forward in this paper for quantifying thesystematical energy consumption, resources consumption, total emissions’ change and waste disposal capacity in road construction with recycled waste materials involved. With help of this evaluation indexes system, the contributions to environmental improvement caused by recycling waste materials in road construction can be quantified through calculating savings on environmental impact potentials, savings on energy consumption, on virgin materials’ consumption and waste disposal capacity provided by road construction. Based on the construction project of a road section numbered No.20 EWK0+400 ~ EWK0+600 of North highway to Shanghai Pudong international airport, which was the first trial project of using several kinds of recycled waste materials including bottom ash from incinerators to replace commonly used materials such as gravel in large scale in road pavement, the results of the four indexes, namely, savings on energy consumption and virgin materials’ consumption, environmental impact potentials as well as waste disposal capacity were obtained. It was found out that with multi recycled waste materials replacing part of the common construction material, systematical energy consumption can be reduced by 30%, a large amount of virgin resource consumption can be avoid and road construction also provides a remarkable large “dumping site” for solid wastes; while at the same time environmental impact potentials were saved for most impact categories except for increase in Ecotoxicity, water chronic, which was caused by heavy metals’ leaching and can be prevented by pre-treatment. Those results are useful for guiding the utilization of recycled waste materials, as well as for developing new technology process and advanced materials in road construction.


2009 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
K.K. Gupta ◽  
G. Prasad ◽  
A.K. Chopra ◽  
D.R. Khanna

Herbal drugs have been used as remedies for the treatment of large number of humans, ailments since ancient times as the traditional medicine system; India has a glorious past, having first documented record of fully developed medical science known as Ayurveda written by several ancient Rishi’s. Major groups of indigenous system of medicine are based on herbal drugs. A survey made by WHO indicated that about 80% of the world population relies on herbal drugs. Herbal drugs are becoming more popularized and important even in the developednations with hope of their non-toxicity and may play a role of substitute to overcome the problems of multi drug resistant pathogens. Cultivation of drug plants has been started in large scale without considering the land quality and in certain cases irrigation with waste water. Application of different fungicides, pesticides in that specific field or in neighboring fields may be directly deposited superficially or may be absorbed by the plant system. Therefore in the present situation possibilities of the Asian herbal drugs, contaminated with large number of toxic components cannot be ignored which may severely hurt human life in place of healing or curing.These contaminants may be either alone or in combination and may be originated intrinsically, extrinsically and deliberately. Certain contaminants may be highly toxic and may cause severe adverse effect in the human system. Some of the important contaminants are the heavy metals like lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury, copper and pesticides. Adulteration of modern drugs to enhance drug potency and heterogenous microbial population including human pathogens may contaminate both raw and powdered herbal drugs. Among these contaminants, microbial contamination seems more severe and may be due to their dual action on the drug i.e. utilization of medicinally important chemical components as nutrients and in certain cases by producing certain mycotoxins, which may be even carcinogenic under certain conditions . Critical evaluation of both raw and powdered herbal drugs for contaminants is the urgent need of the time in order to provide safety measures in herbal health care medicine.


1957 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 167-174
Author(s):  
Ross E. McKinney
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Mohamad Satori ◽  
Ivan Chofyan ◽  
Yuliadi Yuliadi ◽  
Otong Rukmana ◽  
Ira Ayu Wulandari ◽  
...  

Organic waste is the largest composition of waste generated by the people of Indonesia, which is around 50-60%. This type of waste, especially food waste, is easy to smell if it is stored for too long so that it has the potential to pollute the environment. On the other hand, organic waste has good nutrients that can be generated, including through BSF (Black Soldier Fly) maggot bioconversion treatment. The BSF maggot bioconversion method is a method of processing organic waste which is carried out by converting organic matter into other products that are useful and have added value by utilizing biological processes from microorganisms and enzymes. Organic waste treatment with this method is generally carried out on a community-based basis and is integrated with the development of agriculture, fisheries and animal husbandry, because maggot cultivation produces commodities of economic value such as compost and maggot larvae. Compost contains very good nutrients so that it can be used for organic farming and maggot contains high protein that can be used for animal feed and fisheries. The implementation of this program was piloted in the boarding school community, namely the Az-Zakaria Islamic Boarding School which is managed by the Az-Zakaria Islamic Education Foundation (YPI) in Sindangbarang Village, Jalaksana District, Kuningan Regency. The result of this implementation is the formation of a new group of entrepreneurs engaged in the cultivation and utilization of BSF maggots.


Author(s):  
Garrett Hardin

A funny thing happened on the way to the second nationwide Earth Day in 1990. Twenty years earlier the first Earth Day had been saluted with much talk about population problems. At that time world population stood at 3.6 billion. But when the second Earth Day rolled around, the topic of population was almost completely ignored. Was that because world population had stopped growing? Hardly: in the intervening two decades it had increased 47 percent to an estimated 5.3 billion— an increase of 1.7 billion (more than six times the present population of the United States). Common sense tells us that the per capita share of environmental riches must decrease as population numbers increase, and waste disposal necessarily becomes an ever greater problem. Of course common sense is sometimes wrong. But if that is so in this instance, the celebrants of the 1990 Earth Day should have been shouting, "We've found the secret of perpetual growth!" A few incurable optimists did defend this position, but most people lumped their claims with those of the flat earthers, ignoring both. The celebrants were generally silent about the 47 percent increase in population. Why? The answer comes in two parts, the first being historical. It is now known that the planners of Earth Day 1990 were under economic pressure to leave population out of the picture. When directors of philanthropic foundations and business concerns were solicited for financial support they let it be known that they would not look kindly on a population emphasis. Money talks, silence can be bought. (Why the bankrollers shied at population will become clear later.) The second aspect of the answer is more subtle. It has long been recognized that some of our most deeply held views are not neat, precise propositions but broadly "global" attitudes that act as the gatekeepers of the mind, letting in only those propositions that do not challenge the dominant picture of reality. Germans call such gatekeeper attitudes Weltanschauungen, an impressive mouthful that is quite adequately translated as "worldviews." For all but the last few hundred years of human history the dominant worldview was a limited view: resources were limited, human nature was fixed, and spending beyond one's income was a sin. This essentially conservative perception prevailed until about 1600.


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