Thu, 26 Jun 2025

Thu, 26 Jun 2025 Should we be letting flies eat our food waste?

In Lithuania and Australia, hungry fly larvae are used to process food waste into useful protein.

* Vilnius, Lithuania's capital, has partnered with Energesman to process its food waste using fly larvae (maggots), saving the city up to €2m (£1.7m; $2.3m) per year.
* The company houses around 6 million flies in a special zone within its Vilnius plant and plans to turn the fattened fly larvae into a new income stream, including using them as protein-rich feed for animals or industrial products like paint, glue, lamp shades, and furniture covers.
* Energesman has set up supply trials with partners in the paint, glue, and furniture industries but acknowledges it's proving more complicated than anticipated.
* EU health and safety regulations mean fly larvae fed with kitchen waste can't be used in edible insect products for human consumption due to cross-contamination risks from meat and fish scraps.
* The company has university partnerships in place to supply fly larvae for research purposes and feeding bacteria, as well as demand from the local fishing industry to use them as bait.
* There are a handful of city councils worldwide that have adopted this method of processing food waste, including Vilnius and cities in Kenya and Australia.
* UK councils may soon follow suit due to impending regulations requiring weekly household food waste collections, but EU health and safety regulations currently bar using fly larvae for processing food waste.
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