i think it's silly to say the the biopod is such a better place for raising bsf maggots.
Based on what?
I've shown you one recent post by someone who's colony disappeared from his compost bin. Just a few posts ago in this thread someone related how ants had entered her compost bin. If nothing else the ants represent competition for the BSFL. That's less efficiency.
Your method for collecting larvae is great and I've used it myself for the immature larvae, but it still requires forethought and a number of steps. That's less efficient. With my homemade unit or a BioPod you can ignore the unit for several days and still walk out to it, open a bucket and remove the larvae.
A more closed system like a BioPod is better at concentrating the info-chemicals that the BSF produce. These chemicals work to attract female BSF and to repel pest flies. Concentrating these chemicals is more efficient.
mrgrackle, I'm not debating that people can build a satisfactory BSF unit with cheap materials, I've never said otherwise. I did it myself a year before I even knew BioPods would ever be available. I didn't think of it myself though, I borrowed the idea from Dr. Paul Olivier of ESR Itnl. who published details of his design on the web for all to see.
After tweeking my unit for over a year I'm very familiar with it's strengths and weaknesses. Now that I have a BioPod I feel very confident in saying that the BioPod is significantly more efficient than my unit. I can raise millions of BSF larvae in my homemade unit, I can do it with more efficiency and convenience in a BioPod. Until you test a BioPod and a similar homemade unit I don't see how you can claim to understand the difference between those and a traditional compost bin.
Originally Posted By: mrgrackle
drawbacks I see to the Biopod...
1. expensive
2. with the biopod you're kinda stuck with the size of the compost area. if you have a lot more or less compost, you may run into problems... i guess you could buy the more expensive, yet larger, biopod version. is that one in production yet?
2(.5) you can build very efficient units from recycled materials around your own area. These units are built in.... Vietnam right? Maybe the wrong country but they are being built in SE Asia. Globalism/consumerism and a lot of shipping things around the world. I dug my unit out of large trash pickup in my neighborhood.
3. doesn't address the problem of waste disposal in poor rural communities where this sort of technology would be HUGE just for the sanitation point of view. bsf should be able to be put to use with items people find right around their area for cheap. i've seen this done with biogas to turn human waste into cooking/lighting gas fuel.
1. Cost is relative. My girlfriend bought a Rubbermaid garden cart last year for the exact price of a BioPod. The BioPod took years of research and testing to develop, the garden cart not so much. The cart gets used occasionally and a BioPod will function continuously for months at a time or in most cases year round. If a person used a BioPod for one year it would have cost them about $.50 per day. Use one for 3 years and the cost is more like $.17 per day.
2. ESR claims that the BioPod can process 11 lbs. of waste every day. That's a lot of organic garbage. I haven't personally added that much to my unit or a BioPod so we'll have to see if the claim is true. If you had more than 11 lbs. of waste on a given day you could still add it to the unit, but you would have to adjust with smaller amounts later on. I'm not sure I completely understand the merit of this particular criticism. All tools have a limit to what they can accomplish. The larger ProtaPod is about twice the diameter of the BioPod and handles twice the waste. It's a rare household that produces more than ll lbs of waste per day. I'm not sure if the ProtaPod is available yet. It sells for $300, roughly double the price.
2.5. It seems like the globalism/consumerism argument you put forth is being used more and more, often by people using computers made in China or other distant countries. The people using this argument against a bio-composting unit that weighs 15 lbs. ought not to be watching an imported television or an imported computer monitor, or wearing imported shoes, etc. I applaud the sentiment, but there are many many products that we need to criticize this way before we get to the BioPod. The BioPod is a practical tool that can help introduce people to a sustainable technology that they otherwise might not attempt.
Dr. Olivier's ultimate goal is to eliminate landfill completely and convert a steady stream of food waste into a stream of nutritious animal feed. The BioPod is one aspect of this larger goal.
Yes, the BioPod is manufactured in Vietnam where Dr. Olivier currently lives. He has worked with the government of Brazil to find a solution to sewage treatment without wasting potable water as our system does. I believe he is involved in a similar way with the government of Vietnam. If the people of Vietnam benefit from manufacturing BioPods I'm alright with it.
3. It's true that poor people can't afford a BioPod and Dr. Olivier is aware of that. Here's a quote from his company's website:
Quote:
Old School: Precast Concrete
The most basic way to manufacture soldier fly bioconversion units is by means of pre-cast concrete. But a pre-cast unit molded as a single part will be difficult to handle and transport. However, if molded in three vertical sections of 120 degrees, these sections are easy to handle, and they can be stacked against one another to reduce transport volume.
Another advantage of molding the unit in three sections: no metal reinforcement of the concrete is required. Since the three sections are held together by three nylon straps in much the same way that an oak barrel is held together by bands of steel, stress on the unit is relieved at the points of intersection of the three sections.
All that is needed for the fabrication of the unit is a dollar or two of cement, and recycled materials such as stone, brick or broken glass can serve as aggregate or filler. To reduce the weight of pre-cast concrete, a lightweight aggregate such as perlite and vermiculite can be used. The construction of bioconversion units could take on many of aesthetic qualities of Hypertufa: lightweight, artificial stone containers.
No Bottom
Note that the concrete unit has no bottom. The unit can be situated above a bed of sand that would serve as a partial filter, and any nutrients that escape this filter could be absorbed by the roots of plants situated around the perimeter of the unit. In this way any free liquids liberated by the larvae in the digestion of the waste do not necessitate the introduction of bulking materials. This greatly simplifies the operation of the unit.
If left out in the open, the unit must have a lid to prevent rainwater from coming in. A lid could consist of nothing but a sheet of plastic or plywood. The fasteners that hold down the metal strips at the top of the unit create sufficient space in between the unit and the lid to allow soldier fly access into the unit.
Ideal for Developing Countries
Such a unit is ideal for use in developing countries where the cost of materials is high relative to the cost of labor. Since cement is abundant and readily available throughout most developing countries, since very little skill is needed to fill a mold, small workshops could be easily set up to serve a specific area or province, thereby eliminating the costly transport of units over long distances. Our goal is to sell a unit capable of disposing of all the putrescent waste from a single household for less than $10 US dollars. Larger units could be easily constructed in the same simple manner as indicated above by changing the angle from 120 to 60 degrees, and by increasing the number of ramps from two to four. In this case, a unit would consist of six vertical sections. Since one half of a unit would identical to its other half, the entire unit could be fabricated, once again, out of three molds.
Urine-Diverting Toilet
Another big advantage of using precast concrete: the unit could easily support the weight of a pre-cast concrete lid that could incorporate all of the essential features of a urine-diverting toilet. Into the one bin goes all putrescent waste
another thing i have a personal aversion to is sending bsf to places where there aren't any bsf already.
I think that's a valid concern, but from what I've read there is almost no place in the continental US that doesn't already have black soldier flies. There is certainly nothing stopping them from naturally migrating. I've put thought into this important issue and I still can't imagine what negative effects a larger population of BSF would produce. I think the species that would suffer the most from increased BSF would be the house fly. House flies are fairly dependent on human activity and replacing this disease carrying pest with a non-pest cousin sounds like more of a solution to me than a problem. I could be wrong about this and I welcome any evidence that might support the idea that encouraging the BSF population is harmful.
mrgrackle, like you I'm very skeptical about people's motivations, especially when there is profit at stake. I don't object to your questions and I pardon any lapses in politeness. Most of your points warrant an explanation and I'm happy to provide them to the best of my ability. Of all the people I've corresponded with you seem to be the most experienced and knowledgeable about BSF, unfortunately you have no experience with a BioPod. Maybe someday you'll get one or build a copy of one and at that point I'll be even more interested in your observations.
