Waste transformation closed loop farming

Plants and animals do not appear separately within the natural world.
Did you ever see an ecosystem consisting only of plants? or an ecosystem consisting only of animals?
In the natural world we see multiple animal systems closely coupled to multiple plant systems.
So simple and so obvious. That’s the way nature works.
Such interdependency and mutualism at the local level must also be extended to the raising of
domesticated plants and animals.
The large-scale mono-cropping of domesticated plants and the large-scale mono-raising of domesticated
animals stand out starkly as gross aberrations within the natural world.
Both are highly inefficient in producing food.
Together they constitute the most destructive force on our planet (Industrial farming is driving the sixth
mass extinction of life on Earth, says leading academic).
We must return to the concept of a multi-functional small-scale farm where multiple plant systems and
multiple animal systems are closely integrated on the one farm.
When this happens, small farmers are able to create all of the feed and fertilizer they need without any
external input of commercial feed and chemical fertilizers typically brought in from thousands of
kilometers away.
When small farmers are able to make all of the feed and fertilizer they need, they are able to make money
as never before, since many levels of parasitic buying and selling are eliminated.
Since the production of food is localized, it also becomes possible for small farmers to sell food directly to
nearby households and restaurants without a single trader, middleman, market or supermarket involved.
In the end, there is an abundance of safe food at affordable prices at the local level.
2

As odd as this might sound, it’s all about waste.
It’s all about transforming waste at the highest possible levels.
It’s all about shuffling transformed waste back and forth between
multiple plant and multiple animal systems on the one farm.
It’s all about creating food cascades and loops that are infinitely self-
renewing.
Here not a gram of waste is wasted, and biodegradable waste, in all of
its many forms, becomes the most valuable resource that small
farmers could ever possess.
But before small farmers can tap into the bounty that waste has to
offer, there’s a waste hierarchy that they should recognize and respect.
Biodegradable waste can be situated into four different types in
descending order of nutrient content.
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The Four Levels of Waste Transformation
1. high-grade putrescent heat treatment and/or fermentation feed
2. low-grade putrescent larvae and red worm bioconversion larvae, worms, vermicompost
3. high-grade non-putrescent meso- and thermophilic composting compost
4. low-grade non-putrescent gasification high-grade heat and biochar
Types of Waste Methods of Transformation Products
Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 4

Examples of Type 1 Waste
 food waste
 slaughterhouse waste
 crustacean waste
 fish by-products
 fish mortalities
 fruit and vegetable waste
 coffee pulp
 banana stem
 cashew apples
 passion fruit peel
 brewery and distillery waste
 peanut press cake
 feathers
 plus many more.
5

 cow manure
 pig manure
 chicken manure
 duck manure
 rabbit manure
 goat manure
 horse manure
 human manure
 plus many more.
6

 rice hulls
 coffee parchment
 coffee husk
 macadamia shells
 walnut shells
 almonds shells
 pecan shells
 rubber tree sawdust
 Mimosa pigra
 mesquite
 Chinese Tallow
 corn cobs
 and so forth
7

Type 1 waste is waste biomass or co-cropped biomass rich enough in nutrients to be used as feed.
Heat-treatment and fermentation are the most obvious ways to transform waste directly into feed.
Type 2 waste is simply the fresh manure of the animal or bird that ate the feed.
Here fresh manure is collected as a firm solid off of odorless, fly-free bedding.
It is then immediately fed to larvae of the black soldier fly.
When larvae eat fresh manure, not a drop of leachate is produced,
and their residue does not turn anaerobic and stink.
Their residue becomes a great substrate for red worms or nightcrawlers.
Type 3 waste involves in part of the urine of the animal that ate the feed.
Here urine is mesophilically immobilized in biomass bedding,
and nitrogen emissions and odor are suppressed.
Type 3 waste also consists of many kinds of fresh green waste that cannot be used as feed, or fed to larvae and
worms.
This green waste is easily transformed into fertilizer by means of thermophilic microbes.
Type 4 waste consists of agricultural by-products and woody biomass that do not easily compost.
Type 4 waste should be prepared into relatively small pellets of a diameter not greater than 8 mm, preferably 6
mm.
8

The length of the pellet should not be more than 1.5 times its diameter.
The uniformity of gasifier fuel is essential in producing high-quality syngas and high-quality biochar.
The moisture content of pellets should not exceed 10%.
Certain types of woody biomass such as bamboo can be split and cut into uniform granules.
9
Short Pellets Bamboo Granules

At Level 1, small farmers produce feed derived from hundreds of different high-grade biomass streams.
At Level 2, small farmers produce larvae (feed), worms (feed) and vermicompost (fertilizer).
At Level 3, small farmers produce mesophilic and thermophilic compost (fertilizer).
Small farmers do not sell the intermediate products of feed and fertilizer.
They use them to create additional value on their farms.
Using combined heat and biochar gasifiers at Level 4, small farmers simultaneously produce syngas and biochar.
They do not have to buy fossil fuels, coal, charcoal or wood to create high-grade heat.
And since biochar is a co-product of creating high-grade heat, farmers need never employ dirty biochar kilns.
One should also note that biochar has a greater value than the fuel from which it is derived.
In other words, high-grade heat is produced at a profit.
The biochar produced at Level 4 is put into feed at Level 1 and into bedding at Level 3.
Biochar in feed ends up in manure at Level 2, where it is consumed sequentially by larvae and worms.
Larvae, worms and composting microbes effect the surface oxidation/activation of biochar.
When biochar is incorporated into bedding (5% to 10% by volume), it suppresses odor and provides enormous
surface area for composting microbes.
It is absolutely imperative that agriculture be de-industrialized and taken out of the hands of large companies
selling feed, fertilizer, fuel and biochar to small farmers.
10

Larvae eat fresh manure (even fresh chicken manure), something that worms cannot do,
and worms eat the more fibrous biomass that the larvae cannot digest.
Worms typically grow much faster on larval residue than on a partially composted substrate.
Together larvae and worms form an outstanding partnership in
1. nutrient extraction,
2. waste valorization and
3. waste sanitization.
Vermicompost containing biochar is by far the finest fertilizer that exists.
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Red wormsMature Prepupal Larvae

With a biopod, mature prepupal larvae climb up ramps and self-harvest right into a bucket.
When a biopod fills up with larval residue, immature larvae are removed from off the surface and replaced by
worms.
Each day vermicompost is removed from above the worms, as the worms eat their way down.
Eventually only worms remain at the bottom of the biopod and are easily harvested.
The one biopod serves both larvae and worms in alternating fashion.
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https://www.dropbox.com/s/7aix03cebxr3fuo/IMG_0249.MOV?dl=0

15
Collection buckets with ramps can be placed inside conventional rectangular larval growbeds.
These buckets can be fabricated out of 304 stainless steel.
Buckets might be corner buckets or straight-wall buckets.
Buckets are
moved up as
larval residue
accumulates.
Extended biopods
are not needed.
Corner
Straight-wall

Larvae crawl through the vertical slit and fall into the pan below.
16

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exYC5e01tRc
17

Biochar produced at high temperatures has a surface area that ranges from 250 to 650 m2/gram.
Such a large surface area provides fermentation microbes, the gut microbes of poultry and animals, the gut
microbes of larvae and worms, composting microbes and soil microbes –
all with a lot of space for mutualistic exchanges within biofilm.
When biochar is incorporated into fermented feed at Level 1, we see increases in poultry, animal and fish
growth ranging from about 17% to 40%.
When biochar finally makes its way into the soil, we see increases in plant growth ranging from 30% to 400%.
Biochar produced at high temperatures (>800 C) can retain almost six times its weight in water.
Biochar remains in the soil for hundreds to thousands of years – a wonderful way to sequester carbon.
It’s important to stress the multifunctionality of biochar.
Putting biochar directly into the soil is not always the best way to proceed.
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The diameter determines kW output and height determines run time.
Here you see a series of top-lit updraft gasifiers of various diameters ranging from 100 mm to 800 mm
with outputs ranging from 3.25 kw to 200 kW.
The larger gasifiers have lids with multiple burner heads, and the largest gasifier shown here sells for
less than $1,000 US.
100-250 150-250 150-500
250-500 500-800 800-1000
1st number = diameter
2nd number = height
19

The reactor of this gasifier has no bottom.
The reactor is simply placed on any flat surface such as a floor tile.
Since the reactor has no bottom, hot air does not exit through the air pipe when the reactor is emptied of biochar.
In this way the fan can remain permanently attached to the air pipe.
The AC/DC adapter that powers the fan is equipped with a variable speed regulator.
20

25
Tungsten has a the highest melting point of all metals
(3,422 C) (see Refractory Metals).
Its density is 19.25.
The tungsten disk shown here functions as a syngas
afterburner.
It helps shield the burner from wind.
It generates radiant heat within a few mm’s of a pot
or pan.
It improves the transfer of heat to pot or pan.
It facilitates the lighting of syngas.
And it augments combustion visibility.
Video

Here you see a 150-500 gasifier being used to roast coffee.
Small farmers in Laos and Vietnam are being taught how to process and even roast their coffee beans.
As they roast, they make biochar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76ZtyY0MhYc&feature=youtu.be
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THE ROLE OF SMALL-SCALE CROP RESIDUES IN SOUTHEAST
ASIA’S CLEAN AND IMPROVED COOKING SECTOR
Globally, 40% of the population (3.1 billion people) still rely on solid fuel combustion for cooking.
Each year this one practice claims the lives of 4.3 million people (WHO 2018a).
According to the World Health Organization (2012), the air pollutants released from unclean cook stoves
account for 7.7% of global mortality.
This is more than the sum of all deaths from malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.
Air pollution from household solid fuel combustion is the most important global environmental health risk at
this time (WHO 2014).
Household air pollution (HAP) also represents 5% of the global disease burden (WHO 2014).
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Household air pollution makes its way into the environment and
contributes to ambient air pollution.
Household air pollution accounts for 0.4 million additional deaths
each year due to ambient air pollution.
This is equivalent to 12% of total ambient air pollution related
mortalities.
Firewood-based cooking methods are responsible for:
1. 3% of global CO2 emissions,
2. 25% of global black carbon emissions and
3. over 1.3 billion tons of annual wood fuel consumption.
Firewood-based cooking methods results in massive deforestation.

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About 140 million productive person-years are lost annually on biomass fuel
collection and unavoidable cooking time.
In 2015, the World Bank assessed the annual economic burden of global solid
fuel dependence to be up to $222 billion USD.
One of the many dangers associated with biomass fuel collection:
A mother’s impossible choice: risk rape to feed your family, or starve
About 51% of Vietnamese household engage in the direct combustion of solid
fuels. In rural areas, this figure climbs to 72.1%.
According to the World Health Organization guidelines:
1. the average PM2.5 concentration over 24 hours should not exceed 25 μg/m3,
2. CO concentration should not exceed an average of 7 mg/m3 (5.68ppm),
3. and the maximum CO2 level should not exceed 1000 ppm.
The direct combustion of wood, coal and charcoal do not come close to meeting
the emission standards set by the WHO.

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Field testing of the Lotus Fire Gasifier was carried out in Laos from 07/03/2018 to 12/03/2018.
Only 37% of the maximum recommended PM2.5 concentration was reached.
Only 9% of maximum recommended CO concentration was reached.
The modified combustion efficiency (MCE) was almost 1 (0.941)
In comparison to firewood, gasification reduced PM2.5 emissions by an incredible 92.5%.
Compared to charcoal, gasification reduced benzene emissions by a significant 74.5%.
The gasification of rice husks was only slightly less clean than LPG and always within WHO guidelines.
In vented kitchens, the gasifier controlled the CO2 levels at 30% of the recommended limit.
The gasifier proved to have a specific fuel consumption just 11% greater than LPG.
However, with use of a titanium heat wrap around the reactor and a tungsten disk over the burner, the specific
fuel consumption should now be almost the same as LPG.
In comparison to traditional cookstoves using firewood and charcoal, specific fuel consumption was reduced by
62% and 36%, respectively, and cooking time was reduced by 50%.
Instead of burning wood, coal or charcoal, households can gasifiy crop residues such as rice hulls (Type 4 waste).
Vietnam has millions of tons of crop residues that could meet, many times over, its demand for high-grade heat
and biochar.
In this way, clean energy can be produced in a safe and efficient manner, and the burning of crop residues can be
eliminated.

Meeting the requirements of the WHO is not enough.
There still remains the problem of how to deal with cooking oil fumes.
Cooking oil fumes are highly carcinogenic, and they should not be allowed to smoke up a kitchen.
Nor should they be vented outdoors.
What I propose here is a tabletop, a 3-sided windshield, a biochar filter, a hood and a fan.
a tabletop to stabilize a pot or pan
a 3-sided windshield
a biochar filter to trap cooking oil fumes
a hood
a small 60x60 mm computer fan
We should not use
fossil fuels, wood,
coal or charcoal
to cook a meal.
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150-500 gasifier with housing to
heat primary air

With uniform, small pellets as fuel, every 150 mm of net reactor height gives about one hour of run time. If
a long run time is needed, the reactor might be so tall that the object being heated might not be
ergonomically and safely well situated.
To overcome this problem, one does not have to switch from batch to far more expensive continuously fed
gasifiers. Instead the flow of air within the reactor can be reversed from updraft to downdraft, and the
lighting of pellets can be switched from top to bottom.
With a bottom-lit downdraft gasifier, the burner can be situated at ground level, while the reactor might be
as high as 1.8 meters.
Such a height would give an initial run time of 12 hours.
If pellets of a low ash content are used, there can be a reduction in pellet volume of about 50% as raw
pellets are transformed into biochar pellets.
Without emptying a gasifier at the end of a run, the operator can fill the empty space at the top of the
reactor with more pellets and relight the burner.
The window of opportunity between the end of an initial run and this relighting is about 15 to 20 minutes.
Steel wool is an excellent material to light a bottom-lit gasifier.
Downdraft gasifiers of a long run time are particularly useful in drying fruit, vegetables and grain.
Gasifiers supply hot water to radiators, that in turn supply hot air to solar-powered greenhouses or silos,
whenever the sun is not shining. 38

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Initial run time of 7 hours plus another 3 hours after a quick refill.

When the sun is not shining, hot water produced by a
gasifier is routed to a radiator inside the greenhouse.
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The demand for high-grade heat in Vietnam is fairly endless: cooking, boiling, drying, baking, roasting,
torrefying and so forth,
and until this demand is fully met, it might not be wise to burn syngas to generate electricity.
Why use biomass to generate electricity, when electricity can be inexpensively generated without biomass?
For example, in certain areas along the coast in Vietnam, there is abundant wind, and vertical axis wind
turbines can be manufactured quite cheaply.
43

“Robert Whittlesey and John Dabiri, two fluid dynamicists from the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena, have discovered that arranging vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT) in a
certain pattern will save the space by 100 times compared to classic arrangements, will output the
same amount of energy and will be safer for migrating birds” (Newly Found Vertical Wind
Turbines Arrangement Reduces Space Needs 100 Fold).
My favorite design:
44

Tidal and river flows in certain areas of Vietnam are quite powerful, and hydrokinetic paddlewheels could
be used to transform this energy into electricity.
A paddlewheel has no bearings, wires or other electrical components in the water.
It is easy to service and maintain.
A paddlewheel can be supported by means of a pontoon.
Several pontoons can be attached to one another.
Pontoons can be designed to funnel or constrict water so as to increase the speed of flow.
Paddles move through water at the same speed as the water and do not harm fish.
45

In areas in Vietnam where there is little wind or no tidal flow, there is, of course, solar power.
If solar panels are carefully positioned and spaced within farmland, there can be a significant increase in
the growth of certain plants, a lot less water has to be used, and there can even be an increase in the
production of electricity (Combining Solar & Farming Benefits Both).
“In fact, total chiltepin fruit production was three times greater under the PV panels in an agrivoltaic
system, and tomato production was twice as great!
Jalapenos produced a similar amount of fruit in both the agrivoltaics system and the traditional plot, but
did so with 65% less transpirational water loss.”
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With wind, tidal and solar technologies,
small farmers can make just about all of the
electricity they need.
Electricity production, together with food
production, is localized.

1) Type 1 waste should not be fed to larvae and worms at Level 2, unless it has spoiled and can no longer
be preserved as feed.
When food waste, for example, is fed to larvae instead of being used directly as feed, there is a substantial
loss of protein (about 50%).
Why make a feed out of a feed, especially when there is no shortage of Type 2 waste?
When food waste is fed to pigs and when the manure of the pigs is fed to larvae, one can still produce
about 66% of the larvae as when food waste is fed directly to larvae.
2) Type 1 waste should not be composted at Level 3.
Composting food waste creates an inefficiency of well over 80% in the preservation of nutrients compared
to transforming food waste directly into feed.
3) Type 2 waste should not be composted at Level 3.
Composting fresh manure creates a huge inefficiency in the preservation of nutrients compared to feeding
it to larvae and worms.
4) One should not make biodiesel out of larval fats (fats of a lauric acid content greater than coconut oil!).
5) One should not make feed out of a food: for example, feeding soybean or corn to insects, pigs, chickens,
cows or fish.
“For every 100 calories of human edible cereals fed to farm animals, just 17-30 calories enter the human
food chain as milk or meat.”
6) Routing Type 1 waste and Type 2 waste to biodigesters is pretty much the same as burning potential
feed and fertilizer.
47

If small farmers need high-grade heat, they should make use of gasifiers that utilize low-grade Type 4
waste and produce syngas only as needed.
If we add up biogas emissions from inlet and outlet openings, leaks through cracks and gas valves, leaks
from biogas storage vessels, as well as the intentional release of biogas, total losses in Vietnam are over
40% of the amount of biogas produced.
Furthermore, when digestate is stored, there can be substantial emissions of methane, as much as 20% of
the total methane produced in the biodigester.
Digestate is often contaminated with zoonotic pathogens such as MRSA, Salmonella spp., E. coli and
Clostridium perfringins.
The proliferation of small-scale biodigesters in Vietnam constitutes a serious health and environmental
hazard (Life Cycle Assessment of Biogas Production in Small-scale Household Digesters in Vietnam).
Raising animals on concrete floors, in order to flush waste to biodigesters, is cruel and barbaric.
A lot of water is used in flushing waste to biodigesters.
Values range anywhere from 25 liters (Vanotti et al 2002) to 80 liters (Juantorene et al 2000) per fattening
pig per day.
The larvae, worms and vermicompost that can be generated at Level 2 are worth far more than biogas and
the messy and voluminous sludge and liquids that biodigesters leave behind.
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7) Finally, there is the total nonsense of making fuel out of food: for example, making ethanol out of corn,
or making biodiesel out of palm oil, soybean oil or larval fats.
More than one third of the entire corn crop in the United States is devoted to ethanol production.
Using palm oil as fuel is also a total disaster for the environment.
Eliminating trophic levels, whenever possible, is important.
Instead of feeding BSF residue to worms, small farmers can feed it to aquatic bottom-feeders such as
shrimp, prawns or crawfish – as their principle feed.
Animal and poultry manure can be fed to fish:
• One dairy cow can produce enough feces to raise 100 to 220 kg of fish.
• One beef cow can produce enough feces to raise 90 kg to 160 kg of fish.
• One sheep can produce enough feces to raise 10 kg to 17 kg of fish.
• One pig can produce enough feces to raise 15 kg to 40 kg of fish.
• One laying hen can produce enough feces to raise 6 kg to 8 kg of fish.
• One replacement bird can produce enough feces to raise 4 kg to 5 kg of fish.
• One broiler can produce enough feces to raise 3 kg to 4 kg of fish.
• One turkey can produce enough feces to raise 7 kg to 8 kg of fish.
• And, if these fish are raised aquaponically, for every one kg of fish produced, the farmer can harvest
about 12.5 kg of vegetables.
The manure of one dairy cow, over a period of 4 years, can generate over $32,000 US in fish and vegetables.
49

If fish swim outdoors in streams or rivers, their waste cannot be accessed and directed to the growing of
plants for human consumption.
Aquaponics solves this problem.
Fish are enclosed in tanks or ponds so that their fresh waste can be accessed and immediately directed to
growing plants.
For every one kg of fish produced aquaponically, about 12 kg of vegetables are produced.
The waste of a fish over its lifetime can generate more value than the fish.
Likewise, the waste of an animal, as we have noted, when properly transformed, can generate more value
over its lifetime than the animal itself.
If animals are housed indoors on spacious, odorless and disease-free bedding, their urine gets rapidly
immobilized within bedding and can be used as fertilizer.
The spent bedding of about 15 pigs, containing biochar, ordinarily has enough nutrients to fertilize an
hectare of orchard crops such as coffee or cacao.
At the same time, high-quality feed in the form of larvae and worms, and high-quality fertilizer in the form
of vermicompost, can be produced from fresh manure collected off bedding.
Mature prepupal black soldier fly larvae have a protein content of about 42% protein and a fat content of
about 34%.
BSF lipids contain up to 54% lauric acid, an acid active against lipid coated viruses (including HIV and
measles), as well as Clostridium and many pathogenic protozoa.
For every 5 or 6 kg of fresh pig manure, there are sufficient nutrients to cultivate about 1 kg of larvae and
about a 1 kg of worms.
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With the enormous amount of fresh animal manure produced in Vietnam, small farmers could easily grow
enough larvae and worms so as to offset and replace the import of commercial feedstuffs such as corn and
soybean.
With larvae and worms, the creation of feed does not involve photosynthesis or the harvesting of industrial
fish.
51

When cows are housed indoors on odorless bedding, enteric methane can be captured by means of biochar
filters at the top of a dome structure.
In saving a dying planet, the methane of cows must be captured, since cows produce globally about 562.5
billion liters of methane per day or about 205 trillion liters of methane per year.
The waste of a cow, when transformed correctly over its lifetime, can generate about 10 times more revenue
than the cow.
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Base
Bedding
Filter
Inlets

Pigs on concrete: Savage and Inhumane
Irreversible bone damage as early as 6 weeks of age.
Pigs suffer excruciating pain. 53

Horrendous odor and stench, flies everywhere.
Perfect breeding ground for antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Pigs on concrete: Savage and Inhumane
54

Livestock Outdoors: Not a Solution
“The problem lies in the fact that grazing animals
wreak environmental havoc, while using vast tracts
of land very inefficiently.”
Here we see “open-cast pig mining.”
“Animals raised for food produce about 130 times more
excrement than the entire human population.”
Corporate farm waste may be a bigger environmental
problem than we can imagine
55

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz0zyjoFp7c
Not raised on concrete
and not let loose
outdoors.
There is most
definitely a Third Way
in which poultry and
animals are accorded
comfort and dignity
throughout their entire
lives.
Sow and piglets can
even engage in
building a nest.
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The Enigma of
Animal Suffering

Absolutely no smell,
no flies and no disease.
Antibiotics and other
pharmaceutical
need never be used.
Pigs and bedding
are lightly sprayed
each day with a
probiotic liquid.
Pigs can enjoy a
level of hygiene that
surpasses ordinary
human hygiene.
57

Food waste is an incredible resource, and there’s a lot of it, about 1.3 billion tons globally each year.
Food waste that comes off a plate (plate scrapings) should be heat-treated to prevent the transmission of
pathogens from humans to animals.
After heat treatment, food waste can be fermented.
The cost of heat treatment is not at all an issue when gasifier heat is used.
Heat treatment can be carried out by means of boiling, drying with superheated steam, fry-cooking or sous
vide heating.
Japan and South Korea recycle around 40% of their food waste as feed by means of fry-cooking, and this feed
is fed mainly to pigs.
The pork produced here has an excellent flavor and is advertised as “Eco-Pork.”
An EU panel of experts has concluded that the 9,000 years old practice of feeding food waste to pigs is viable
provided certain safety measures are enforced.
The panel calls for a combination of heat treatment and acidification (fermentation or adding lactic acid).
Researchers at the University of Cambridge conclude that “if the EU would lift its pig swill ban and use new
technologies to heat treat food waste for use as pig food, almost 2 million hectares of land would be saved.”
If we want to save and restore millions of hectares of South America’s biodiverse forests and savannahs,
transforming food waste directly into feed would be a good place to start.
Restaurants, or social enterprises serving restaurants, could heat treat and/or ferment food waste.
Households could make source-separated food waste available to food waste collectors who could process it
in decentralized stations.
Cities might have many decentralized food waste transformation stations.
58

The landfilling, incineration and biodigestion of food waste could be eliminated, and municipalities would
not have to undertake these costly and environmentally destructive activities.
If food waste is not commingled with other waste, a lot more of this other waste can be recycled by scavengers
at a much higher quality and price.
Small farmers and scavengers within social enterprises could completely eliminate landfill in Vietnam.
59

GRUBTUBS
In Austin, Texas, my son, Robert Olivier, collects food waste from restaurants.
The restaurants pay him half of the cost of landfilling their food waste.
He then supplies their food waste to small farmers free-of-charge.
Farmers transform food waste into feed and fertilizer.
Robert transports the food they produce back to the restaurants who supplied
the food waste.
His trucks do not travel empty.
The city of Austin does not have to landfill restaurant food waste.
Small farmers pay nothing for this precious resource.
Grubtubs earns 15% on the sale of their food to restaurants.
Farmers earn an unbelievable 85%!
Restaurants have safe food at a reasonable price.
In this way, everyone wins.
See this France 24 documentary:
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https://www.france24.com/en/201
90422-focus-united-states-austin-
texas-recycling-food-waste-
environment-leftovers-chickens

Food waste is all that is needed to start a food cascade involving, for example, pigs, fish and vegetables.
Pigs are fed heat treated and fermented food waste.
The fish are fed larvae and worms grown on pig manure as well as fry-cooked food waste pellets.
A small amount of biochar in feed increases fish growth by about 37%.
The waste of the fish is routed to grow beds to grow a large variety of fruit and vegetables.
Here you see a fish pond, ten pig pens (each with 10 indigenous pigs) and 40 grow beds.
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Yearly Kg Price/kg Revenue $
Pork 16,000 $3.00 $48,000
Fish 5,026 $3.00 $15,079
Vegetables 62,830 $3.00 $188,490
Total $251,569
Approximate Yearly Revenue
When Sold Directly to
Consumers
Via a Social Enterprise
Not included in this calculation is the value
of vermichar and spent bedding.
They can be used to fertilize orchard crops.
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Plants
Cow
Feces
2) BSF
2) Worms
2) Vermicompost
Pig Chicken Fish
Feces
2) BSF
2) Worms
Feed Feed Feed
Feces
Feed
2) BSF
2) Worms
Excreta1) Fermentation with 4) Biochar
Many Other Cascades and Loops are Possible
63

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Since fresh biodegradable waste cannot be transported economically long distances, the food derived from
it must be locally raised or grown.
Food is not a just another commodity to be traded in the global marketplace.
When all of the environmental, economic and social benefits of waste transformation are correctly factored
into the production of food, food is a lot more than the nutrition it provides.
If waste transformed locally is the best thing we’ve got in producing food, so too, food produced locally is
the best thing we’ve got in cleaning up certain types of waste.
All nations must learn to deindustrialize the production of food, to localize the production of food and to
decommodify the sale of food.
How else can they achieve food security in the context of political instability, war or climate change?
The market value of food should never override broader issues relating to food safety, food security, food
justice, food sovereignty, income inequality, the health of the environment and the biodiversity of our
planet.
Since no country should depend on another country to transform its waste, no country should depend on
another country to produce its food.
When consumers buy food produced locally, they know well the small farmers who produce it, and they
know that it is safe.
Organic certification is not needed.

When human waste is correctly transformed and safely returned to agriculture,
sustainability kicks in as never before in modern times.
If human waste is not properly transformed, agriculture will always be dependent on poisonous chemical fertilizers
and other external inputs.
To achieve sustainability in an economical, safe and efficient manner, all toilets should be no-mix dry toilets,
and septic tanks and sewage treatment plants that waste human waste and precious water resources should be done
away with.
Not mixing urine and feces allows for a lot more possibilities in safely transforming these two waste streams.
The high-level transformation of human waste is not optional.
It is absolutely necessary if ever humans are to live in harmony with the natural world.
No-mix, portable, dry toilets can be fabricated for less than $25 US a piece.
65

The pan shown here is a feces pan and
can be easily lifted out of the toilet seat.
Each member of a household might
have a feces pan.
The open-front toilet works in
conjunction with a simple and
inexpensive hand-held urinal.
66
For women For men

No-mix dry toilets are far more hygienic than flush toilets.
Flushing a toilet is an “exploding germ-launching event.”
When toilets are flushed, a room gets covered in a veneer of urine and feces - a great way to transmit disease.
There are many simple ways to reduce odor down to zero when urine and feces are temporarily stored indoors
prior to transformation.
When urine is stored indoors in a bucket, a special lid containing biochar eliminates all odor.
When fresh feces is stored indoors in a bucket, I sprinkle biochar on top, and this eliminates all odor.
I thought that I had discovered something great, but all of this had been discovered more than 150 years ago.
The ability of biochar to capture ammonia was well understood by Justus Liebig back in the 19th century (Justus
von Liebig and the birth of modern biochar).
71

Justus Liebig, the “father of organic chemistry” wrote that charcoal “surpasses all other substances in the power which it
possesses of condensing ammonia within its pores… it absorbs 90 times its volume of ammoniacal gas, which may be
again separated by simply moistening it with water.”
Von Liebig was strongly against flush toilets and the wasting of human waste. He argued that one should not oppose dry
toilets with the flimsy excuse that human excreta stinks.
He explained that biochar eliminates the odor of human waste in the same way that it eliminates the odor of a dead rat:
“A dead rat, nicely buried in a cigar box so as to be surrounded at all points by an inch of charcoal powder, decays to
bone and fur without manifesting any odour of putrefaction, so that it might stand on a parlour table and not reveal its
contents to the most sensitive nostrils.” (The Garden, 1873).
Liebig’s voice was one of many that decried the wastage of “night soil” (a term for human excreta). Liebig had read
accounts of Chinese agriculture that led him to declare: “But how infinitely inferior is the agriculture of Europe to that
of China! The Chinese are the most admirable gardeners and trainers of plants…the agriculture of their country is the
most perfect in the world.”
Perfect because the Chinese understood the importance of the “most important of all manures,” human excrement.
Liebig said, “Indeed so much value is attached to the influence of human excrements by these people, that laws of the
state forbid that any of them should be thrown away, and reservoirs are placed in every house, in which they are
collected with the greatest care.” (Agricultural Chemistry, pp 65-66.) 72

Feces receptacles can be emptied once a week into an aerated bin in which feces is allowed to dry out over a period of
6 months.
Afterwards the contents of this bin should be composted thermophilically over a period of 40 days.
An aerated feces bin is a sort of above-ground, dry septic tank.
It might look like this:
73

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qxvr1wijq7pb63e/AACqqXyCyMGHQOEoCFIwiqx5a?dl=0 74

75
In parts of Kenya human feces is collected daily and fed to BSF larvae, and the larvae are processed into feed.
Joy Riungu writes that “Every 100kg of human waste was converted to 40kg protein, in the form of BSF larvae and 25
Kg of manure” (From waste to health and wealth: transforming sanitation in Kenya). The authors of Insects for Peace
clearly recognize the amazing work being done by small farmers in Kenya to alleviate poverty and pollution.
If food waste, animal waste, human waste, agricultural waste and inter-cropped biomass would
be properly transformed, there would be abundant food right across the entire planet.

Urine can be collected from households and brought to decentralized urine processing facilities where urine can be
transformed into struvite crystals (NH₄MgPO₄·6H₂O or magnesium ammonium phosphate hexahydrate).
With the addition of a small amount of soluble magnesium oxide (MgO), most of the phosphorous (95-99%) and
some of the nitrogen can be recovered as a crystalline precipitate, generally free of pharmaceuticals and pathogens.
MgO can be produced by calcining magnesite rock using gasifier heat.
Finely ground magnesite (MgCO3) can be incorporated into biomass pellets.
When these pellets are gasified at a temperature of about 700 C, soluble MgO is produced.
Biochar pellets containing soluble MgO can then be used for struvite precipitation.
When MgO and biochar are used together, struvite precipitates on the surface of the biochar.
If a small amount of soluble phosphorus produced from bone char is added, all nitrogen and potassium can be
captured in struvite form.
P-solubilizing bacteria and fungi secrete organic acids strong enough to dissolve struvite and make its magnesium,
ammonium, potassium and phosphorus available to plants.
Struvite is an excellent slow-release fertilizer that does not wash away when it rains.
76

Duckweed is one of the fastest growing multi-cellular plants on
earth.
Under the right conditions, it can double in mass in less than 24
hours.
It can yield up to 182 dry tons/hectare/year.
By contrast, the yield of soybean is typically not more than 4
tons/hectare/year.
Duckweed makes an excellent feed for pigs, poultry and certain fish.
The protein content of duckweed can reach as high as 42%.
According to Dr. Bud Culley, duckweed protein closely resembles
animal protein.
According to Dr. Ron Leng, “Pigs can use duckweed as a
protein/energy source with slightly less efficiency than soya bean
meal.”
The Mong Cai pigs of Vietnam are especially efficient in digesting
duckweed.
They eat twice the amount of duckweed compared to white hybrid
pigs. 77

When a household urine bucket fills up, urine can be poured into a mixture of relatively
dry biomass and biochar (similar to pig bedding).
There nutrients within urine get quickly immobilized.
From time to time, this mixture is stirred and then lightly sprayed with a probiotic liquid.
The urine of a few households immobilized in this way with biochar could fertilize about a
hectare of coffee, cacao, banana or some other orchard crop.
Dry rice straw can be treated with urine, fermented and fed to cattle.
Human urine can be routed to a small pond to grow most of the vegetables that a
household needs (anthroponics).
There are, of course, many other ways to transform human urine and feces, as explained in
this Documentary.
78

RECYCLING ANIMAL AND HUMAN DUNG
IS THE KEY TO SUSTAINABLE FARMING
“Flushing the water closet is handy, but it wreaks
ecological havoc, deprives agricultural soils of essential
nutrients and makes food production dependent on fossil
fuels.
For 4,000 years, human excrements and urine were
considered extremely valuable trade products in China,
Korea and Japan.”
We must do away with flush toilets, septic tanks, sewage
treatment plants and biodigesters as soon as we possibly
can.
We talk a lot about sustainability.
But we will never achieve sustainability until we learn to
give back to nature in a closed loop everything that she
needs to sustain us.
Giving back to nature all of the nutrients within our own
waste is our first and most important duty as citizens of
planet Earth. 79

In Vietnam cow and pig bones are boiled anywhere from three to six hours to make stock for noodle soups such as
Pho, Bun Bo, Hu Tieu and Banh Canh.
Such intensive boiling demands a great deal of energy - energy usually derived from the toxic combustion of coal,
charcoal or wood.
However, if gasifiers are used to boil bone, combustion is clean, and energy cost becomes an energy profit due to
the value of the biochar produced.
In Vietnam waste bone usually gets discarded along roads and streets, or it ends up in landfill (Hanoi’s dumping
ground of cattle bones a nightmare for locals).
The discarding of spent bone is incredibly wasteful, since about 80% of the phosphorous within an animal is found
in its bone.
So instead of dumping spent bone along streets or in landfills, farmers can dry it, crush it into a fine powder and
pellet it along with agricultural biomass.
These pellets can then be gasified at temperatures as high as 800 C.
This high temperature also destroys prions that might contaminate bone.
As fresh bone is being boiled in a pot above the gasifier, bone is being charred.
This results in the simultaneous production of broth, bone char and biochar.
About 80% of bone char consists of tricalcium phosphate.
When gasifier heat is used to make bone char, heat is not wasted as in dirty biochar or bone char kilns.
In contrast to rock phosphates which might contain uranium, cadmium, lead, copper, arsenic and other heavy
metals, bone char is generally free of such contaminants.
80

Bone char can be added to a feed fermentation mix, or it can be incorporated into the soil.
It is referred to as a soft phosphate in that it is not as soluble and leachable as commercial phosphate.
The high-level transformation of bone is not optional.
Apatite reserves are rapidly dwindling.
In as little as 20 years, many of these reserves will no longer be economically exploitable.
Some predict that massive world-wide starvation will follow in the decades to come (Phosphate fertiliser 'crisis'
threatens world food supply).
81

Over 45 million tons of feathers are produced globally each year.
This waste is not so easy to dispose of, since feathers contain 90% keratin, a substance that is not easily digested
by poultry and animals.
However, poultry feathers can be fermented using a feather-degrading bacterium called Bacillus licheniformis
(Strain PWD-1).
When the feather-lysate produced by this process is supplemented with certain amino acids, it “produced a growth
curve identical to soybean meal…
These results indicate that the anaerobic fermentation of feathers offers a potential new process for feather waste
treatment to provide a nutritious feed protein” (Evaluation of a Bacterial Feather Fermentation Product, Feather-
Lysate, as a Feed Protein1).
Three species of Bacillus as well as the fungus, Aspergillus niger, can be used to transform feather waste into feed.
82

Small-scale multi-functional farms can be 10 to 100 times more productive and lucrative per hectare than
large-scale mono-functional farms,
and when small farmers are incorporated into social enterprises that educate, train, equip and sell on their
behalf, small farmers in developing countries, with no more than an hectare of inter-cropped farmland,
can each make $50,000 to $100,000 US per year.
When small farmers can earn substantial income on their farms, their children will not have to migrate to
cities in search of low-paying jobs where they typically work as slaves in garment factories, shoe
factories or the like.
When small farmers can earn substantial money on their farms, their children will not migrate, extended
families will not be split apart, and cultural traditions that define the uniqueness of a people over many
centuries will remain intact.
If small farmers provide land, they should receive 40% of the profit when their food is sold to consumers.
If they provide the labor needed to produce the food, they should receive another 40%.
The social enterprise then carries out home and restaurant delivery of food on their behalf, and in so
doing, it should earn 20% of the profit.
Markets and supermarkets are not needed.
Since it has no employees, a social enterprise does not need to be unionized.
Even though it is not a charity, it stands as a staunch defender of economic and environmental justice.
83

Why should parasitic traders, middlemen, markets and supermarkets be involved in the sale of food?
Do we not live in a digital age in which food could be ordered and delivered directly to households
and restaurants?
Is this not what Grabfood, DoorDash, Grubhub and Postmates are doing?
Delivery Only: The Rise Of Restaurants With No Diners As Apps Take Orders
At the same time, farmers would not have to lose time transporting and selling their food, and
consumers would not have to waste time and resources cluttering streets and highways in traveling
to markets, supermarkets or even a farmers' markets to buy their food.
In this way, consumers would have safe food at affordable prices, especially if they make food waste
available to scavengers and small farmers.
Scavengers and small farmers would make a lot of money, and the people running a social enterprise
would be engaged in a highly profitable business.
We need a global revolution in agriculture in which social, economic and environmental justice
prevails. 84

When people let waste go to waste or fail to transform it at the right levels, the environment inevitably gets polluted,
the beauty of the natural world is destroyed, and people often go hungry and are malnourished.
How often do we see pictures of starving or malnourished children, and at the same time, they are everywhere
surrounded by filth and waste?
85
We do not have a food crisis, but a catastrophic failure to grasp the basics of waste transformation.
The natural world is prepared to give us all the food that we need.
We have only to give back to her the transformed biomass that she needs.
Giving and taking must be in balance so as to create infinitely self-renewing food cascades and loops.
Marvelous things happen when humans do not waste waste, and when they live in harmony with the natural world.
For a lot more detail and supporting references, please see:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wbarsaz89mvtglw/Summary.pdf?dl=0

Waste transformation closed loop farming

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