Implementing Black Soldier Fly Larvae (Hermetia illucens) Based Sustainable Waste Management Method in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The world population is expected to rise nearly 9 billion by 2050 (Schiavone et al., 2017). The balance between food production systems, food sovereignty, and environmental sustainability has become the top argument among scientists and policymakers worldwide. Organic farming concepts have become popular in many parts of the world. Today organic fertilizer availability is a hot topic in Sri Lanka where all the farmers struggle to save their livelihood under mono fertilizer systems in Sri Lanka (Cordell et al., 2021). Shifting towards greener crop production through organic fertilizer is a positive economic, environmental, and health perspective. Producing quality organic fertilizer to meet the crops’ nutrition¬al requirements and acquiring sufficient amounts of nutritional factors through proposed models are challenging and competitive. Local soil has been extensively used for inorganic fertilizer in the last five decades (Upekshani et al., 2021). Therefore, the rapid transition of soil with rich organic amendments with readily available plants nutrients is challenging but not impossible. It is evident that nutritionally rich organic supplementations to soil are timely needed intervention. On the other hand, managing generated waste is quite challenging for local governments in Sri Lanka where only 20-80% of the collected waste is managed (Eheliyagoda., 2016). Approximately 90% of the generated waste is open dumped (Menikpura et al., 2012). Fur¬thermore, 53% of the waste is composed of food and green waste (Vidanarachchci et al., 2006). With the rapid urbanization, waste management is becoming challenging but con¬trollable with necessary interventions; However, due to administrative weaknesses, inade¬quate financial and technical support, and people’s poor willingness and attitudes towards waste management had created an unsatisfactory situation (Kuruppuge and Karunarathna, 2013). Local governments are unable to guarantee a promising solution due to improper organization and lack of financial resources (Sivanantharaja, A., 2018). Therefore, it must be urged to seek more reliable, effective, and hands-on waste management practices sus¬tainably to ensure the nation’s well-being.