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What if you are sitting on valuable biowaste without realising it?
What if you are sitting on valuable biowaste without realising it?
01 · The default answers
What biowaste usually becomes
Biowaste has always been treated as a problem — something to dispose of at the lowest cost.
Biogas and composting became the default answers. Both work. Neither is truly profitable without subsidies:
- Biogas needs scale, energy subsidies, and $50–150/ton gate fees.
- Composting output is worth $30–70/ton — a ceiling, not a floor.
- Landfill is cheap for the producer but costly for everyone else.
02 · Already spoken for
Some streams already have buyers
Some biowaste already has good buyers — brewery grain to dairy, bread to pigs, clean farm residues into feed. Those work. They don't need BSF, and when BSF companies chase them, they aren't really recycling. Leave them out.
The real opportunity is the biowaste nobody wants. Variable, wet, too small for biogas, too expensive to landfill. For thirty years it's been written off as a cost.
03 · Where BSF fits
Unwanted waste into protein and fertiliser
That is where BSF actually fits.
Not as the cheapest protein producer — the story the insect industry has pushed for a decade. But as a way to turn unwanted waste into feed-grade protein ($550–700/ton) and fertiliser ($30–80/ton). Roughly ten times the output value of composting.
That output is what makes the numbers work. In some markets it covers full operating costs, so waste is processed at no net cost. In most, it lets us charge a gate fee far below biogas, composting or landfill — cleaner, local, and up and running in weeks, not years.
04 · The honest answer
Not a universal answer
BSF is not a universal answer. Most streams we look at do not pass the evaluation. And the industry has pushed the wrong story for too long. That is what we at Manna, with partners in 30+ countries, are focused on fixing.
If you are paying to dispose of a biowaste stream — or dumping it because no one wants it — we are happy to take a look. A short call, your real numbers, and an honest answer: business, cost-neutral, or walk-away.
What stream have you never found a good home for?
Keep exploring
Related topics and pages
- Articles library — the article collection this post belongs to
- Four Ways to Handle Biowaste — Where Each One Actually Wins — how biogas, composting, incineration and landfill compare with BSF
- You have a biowaste problem. Could it actually become profitable? — the 3-step evaluation for whether a biowaste stream can pay
Read next
- Is BSF the right answer for your biowaste stream? The evaluation I actually run — the five-question test for whether a stream clears the bar
- Four Ways to Handle Biowaste — Where Each One Actually Wins — where biogas, composting, incineration and landfill each fit
- You have a biowaste problem. Could it actually become profitable? — the 3-step evaluation for whether a stream can become a revenue line
- What shows up first in a real biowaste case (it's almost never the biology) — the five non-biology issues that decide a case before larvae matter
Next step
Bring us your biowaste stream
If you are paying to dispose of a stream, Manna can look at your real numbers and give an honest answer on whether it could carry a BSF case.