Loopworm

Vegetable, fruits and Meat waste heaped in local markets spread diseases through flies, mosquitoes and stray animals. This is due to poor collection and treatment systems at local levels. By redesigning the community bin, the unsellable food waste that vendors throw will be reduced aerobically, will demote the growth of flies and mosquitoes, will be odourless, located at places of reach within the market and would also convert the waste into something useful. For this, we are using the Larvae of Black Soldier Flies. We are using a central BSF facility to sustain our decentralised waste community bin, which we have redesigned completely to cater to both the waste treatment and BSF feeding, simultaneously. The Pupae collected would be converted into livestock feed or could be used as a source for Chitin, a natural polymer with multiple uses. It could treat the sewage water or converted to a pest repellent. 

In India, most of the vegetables, fruits, fish and meat is sold in local roadside shops clustered in a small location called ‘Mandi’ or Mini Market. Food regularly gets wasted; it being dumped in the same market. This creates a breeding ground for Mosquitoes, flies and stray animals. This causes serious health problems amongst the sellers, the buyers and the residents nearby. They suffer from Malaria, Dengue, Diarrhoea, and Jaundice. This situation arises because of the poor waste collection systems at the community level. The food waste is often thrown in the sewers, choking it and causing methane pollution. The human scavengers, still in operation in India often faint and die in these sewers because of methane contamination. We aim to solve this problem.

We are improving the lives of the Vegetable, fruits and Meat vendors in local Indian Markets. We have redesigned the community bin (normally placed in these local markets) in a manner that the food waste that the vendors throw inside will be reduced aerobically, will demote the growth of flies and mosquitoes, will be odourless, located at places of reach within the market and would also convert the waste into something useful. For this, we are using the Larvae of Black Soldier Flies, which are known as the fastest convertor of Food waste in the whole planet. The technology to do this is open source and proven, but has been done currently in only a centralised manner for bulk food wastes. We are using a central BSF facility to sustain our decentralised waste community bin, which we have redesigned completely to cater to both the waste treatment and BSF feeding, simultaneously.

In India, most of the vegetables, fruits, fish and meat is sold in local roadside shops clustered in a small location called ‘Mandi’ or Mini Market. Food regularly gets wasted; it being dumped in the same market. This creates a breeding ground for Mosquitoes, flies and stray animals. This causes serious health problems amongst the sellers, the buyers and the residents nearby. They suffer from Malaria, Dengue, Diarrhoea, and Jaundice. This situation arises because of the poor waste collection systems at the community level. The food waste is often thrown in the sewers, choking it and causing methane pollution. The human scavengers, still in operation in India often faint and die in these sewers because of methane contamination. We aim to solve this problem. 

We have redesigned the community bin in a manner that the food waste that people throw inside will be reduced aerobically, will demote the growth of flies and mosquitoes, will be odourless, located at places of reach within the market and would also convert the waste into something useful. For this, we are using the Larvae of Black Soldier Flies, which are known as the fastest convertor of Food waste in the whole planet. The technology to do this is open source and proven, but has been done currently in only a centralised manner for bulk food wastes. We are using a central BSF facility to sustain our decentralised waste community bin, which we have redesigned completely to cater to both the waste treatment and BSF feeding, simultaneously. 

The Pupae collected would be converted into livestock feed or could be used as a source for Chitin, a natural polymer with multiple uses. It could treat the sewage water or converted to a pest repellent. Thus the food waste which was earlier a source of diseases is now a resource for a healthy city. 

Like we are currently doing it for the 2 bins in Roorkee, we could scale it up city to city through proper funds and partners; most importantly the community themselves. Our system can also be retrofitted in existing bins, meaning no additional costs for the Government. Portable small sized bins would enable the coverage of the entire Markets in the densest of Indian cities at a fast pace. Our solution affects everyone’s health directly or indirectly. Even if we consider just the Vendors in India, LoopWorm would impact over a Million people directly.

The design of our reinvented community bin and a simple yet efficient supply chain model can be described as the crux of innovation in our solution.

We designed our bin to function as semi-automated waste treatment plant using the characteristics of BSF larvae and BSF Pupae. The bin’s design makes it an efficient small-scale waste treatment plant while making sure that the waste is treated with least human interference.

Our supply chain model has been developed to make decentralised waste management and treatment a regular, efficient and effective process.

In our solution the innovation also lies in establishing a responsive and collaborative ecosystem that brings together key stakeholders and elements (industry, research, academia, innovation, decentralization and policy) to enable the waste management chain to manifest to its fullest potential.

The solution not does focus on particular disease or problem but it eliminate the root cause of major Disease and Problems caused by Lack of Sanitation. In country like India Lack of Sanitation still causes outbreak of Diseases like Dengue, cholera & typhoid.

A recent Data from Central Pollution Control Board shows that most of the water from river Ganga is not only unsafe for Drinking but also for Bathing. One of the reason for polluted water of river can be Sewerage and Direct waste dumping into River. 

Our solution will reduce the pollutants from Sewerage line, and also the food waste attracts a lot of Disease carriers (eg: flies) which can be eliminated if it gets properly decomposed and managed.

1. Conversion of Food Waste into useful source of Poultry/Fisheries feed and Chitin through the use of Black Soldier Fly (BSF) Larvae

2. Extraction processes to convert the BSF into Protein, Fat, Chitin and their respective products

3. Incorporating the principles of Design of Aerobic Composting Bins, Black Soldier Fly rearing systems and Fluid Dynamics to redesign a Community Bin with required features.

4. We have designed and manufactured a Garbage Bin, which will consist of BSF Larvae, once food waste will get  dumped in that Bin, those Larvae will start acting on it and will consume food waste. After eating enough Larvae will crawl on the Ramp and will get collected in a separate chamber. 

5. The Bin Also has proper ducting so that no anaerobic activates takes place inside it and it also contains a Leachate Box under it, which will contain extra Leachate from the decomposed waste through provided duct channels.

6. Our design is Simple but Effective, by some modification we can transform current municipal corporation bins to Waste Decompose. In India still a large number of sewerage lines are in open and a lot of them end up in same river/water body which the city is drinking from and also the municipal dumping ground are increasing day by day (Municipal officials said that the pile of garbage in East Delhi is already 65 metres (213 feet) high).  

8. By having the black soldier fly larvae eat the waste, much of it will never see a landfill or sewerage. 

We believe a problem can be most efficiently solved when the root to it is dealt with. We, at Loopworm, with out decentralized solution are striking the problem at its root. 

Our solution directly hit the cause of problem i.e. Lack Of Sanitation. For example recently New Delhi witnessed a surge in Dengue and Malaria. Improper management of waste helps growth of various Disease carries like houseflies and mosquito.    

Our solution has been developed by carefully studying the problem and its parameters in great depth and detail. The technology we are using has already been proven, but has been done in only a centralized manner for food wastes on bulk scale only. We have developed a decentralized alternative to it to deal with waste at the starting point of its chain. 

With a very simple supply chain our solution is both logically and financially viable and sustainable in the long run.

Moreover, if we get to partnership with the local government there will be no extra cost involved for the government as the existing bins can be converted into our system.

Our strategic placement and sizing of the bins will make sure that the waste collection and treatment is done efficiently and effectively. 

In our pilot run phase, we have been serving 20 vegetable vendors, in the city of Roorkee, with waste management and treatment using our decentralised solution. We have been using the BSF pupae reared on this waste for lab testing and extraction experiments in the IIT Roorkee laboratories itself.

In the coming year, we plan to serve two vegetable-fruit vendor communities with 100-100 vendors each.

In five year time we plan to get our central facility established in the outskirts of Haridwar. This central facility will be serving 2 food processing units in its waste management and treatment while it will also be serving about 1500 vendors from Roorkee and Haridwar combined, producing commercial grade protein power, oil, chitin and chitosan.

- Successful testing of products derived from Black Soldier Flies and their 3rd party validation

- Scale up of the Decentralized and the centralized facility of Roorkee by the end of next year

- Scale up to cater to the entire Uttarakhand state and adjoining states in the next 5 years

- India is a large country with different climatic conditions at different places, for example temperature at different places differ by 20 degree Celsius and for a same place it ranges between 0 degree Celsius in winters to 50 degree Celsius in summers.

- So our aim is to make our Community Bins Fully/Semi Automatic to control temperature and moister inside our Bin with help of Technology

- Unsegregated waste or waste not meant for bins being dumped into the same.

- Vandalisation of Bins

- Social stigma of insect based waste reduction in a decentralised system

Raising awareness and educating the stakeholders using digital as well as physical medium with the help of NGOs will play a key part in helping us overcome these barriers. As for vandalization is concerned the idea of strategic placement of bins and taking various measures such as fencing will help us overcome it. Moreover, as these bins are being kept for the betterment of life of communities itself we will be educating them with the idea of  ‘For the community, by the community’, trying to inculcate a sense of responsibility which in turn will help us in dealing with the above listed barriers.

Full Time: 2

Part Time: 4

Partnerships:

1. Unnat Bharat Abhiyaan, IIT Roorkee

2. Enactus IIT Roorkee

3. Nation Service Scheme, IIT Roorkee

4. IIT Roorkee Administration

5. Municipal Corporation Roorkee

6. Roorkee Kisan Mandi Committee

Partnerships:

1. Unnat Bharat Abhiyaan

2. Enactus IIT Roorkee

3. NSS IIT Roorkee

4. IIT Roorkee Administration

5. Municipal Corporation Roorkee

6. Roorkee Kisan Mandi Committee

Key Partners

1. Kisan Mandi Committees

2. Municipal Corporations

3. Food Processing Industries

4. Agri-chemical Manufacturers

5. Research Institutions

Key Activities

1. BSF Management at de-centralised bin facilities

2. BSF Management at Central Facilities

3. Bin Health Management

4. Bin Manufacturing 

5. R&D

6. Extraction of Components from BSF in different life-stages

7. Extracted Component Supplying to various Industries

8. Waste Sourcing from food processing units/Breweries

Customer Segment

1. Agri-Chemical Manufacturers

2. Government

Value Proposition

1. Decentralised Waste Management

2. Decentralised Waste Treatment

3. Segregated Food Waste

4. Low Cost Chitin

Customer Relationship

1. Effective and Efficiently Supply chain and management

2. Time-bound delivery practises

Key Resources

1. Vegetable, fruit and meat-fish Waste

2. Raw Materials/Machines for Bin Manufacturing 

3. Extraction Chemicals

4. Partnerships

Earning sources:

1. Protein & Fats for the Fish/Poultry Feed Producing companies ( B2B )

2. Chitin to Industries for Waste water management ( B2B )

3. Chitosan to Pharmaceuticals and Agrochemicals Industry ( B2B )

Expenses:

1. Management of Centralised BSF facility and the Community Bins

2. Production of Community Bins

3. Research & Development

Financial Stability:

We have bootstrapped to pilot test our idea and have been successful in doing it. Now we are looking forward to grants or Incubation opportunities to generate funds for our central facility and increase the number of community bins. Through this we would be validating our supply chain management system. After refining the system, we would be looking for further investments or funds through VCs or Government. We would also tie up with foundations like CHAI which focusses a lot on community health and helps in the implementation of initiatives which positively impacts a communities' health through their active involvement. Once our Central facility is up and running, we would convert into a profitable system, and would recover the investment within 2 years of commencement. The profits generated would be reinvested for Project growth. 

Our solution will be beneficial for a whole community. It is targeted towards eliminating the root cause of infectious disease or vector-borne illness in cities i.e. Lack of Proper Sanitation.

The steps taken by Government are not enough and efficient. In New Delhi a Garbage Mountain (213 feet high) is becoming a Tourist attraction. 

Our solution is to this only, a proper decomposition and management of food waste with help of BSF Larvae. 

We have designed Community Bins to replace normal Municipal Bins, which are quite simple to use and a more efficient and fast way to decompose food waste.

Placing these bins bins at Vegetable Market, Meat market and Grain Market, which generates tons of food waste daily will directly improve the sanitation of that area and in turns reduce chances of Disease outbreaks. 

We will utilize prize money to scale up of the Decentralized and the Centralized facility of Roorkee by the end of next year. Roorkee vegetable market itself generates around a ton of waste daily. Which we will process once we get enough resources for that.  

Another thing we would do is successful testing of products derived from Black Soldier Flies and their 3rd party validation. For that we would like to establish our own lab.