ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- They might not know much about it, but the appropriately named black soldier flies are now on the front lines of the battle for a more sustainable planet.
In Kazakhstan, like in many other countries, that battle sometimes looks like an uphill one.
While the government has recently committed to carbon neutrality by 2060, the green economy in Central Asia's richest country still has a long way to go.
Coal currently accounts for about half of all energy consumption, the oil and gas industry dominates economic activity, and the vast majority of household waste is not recycled.
But for Bekezhan Qairgaliev, an entrepreneur in Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty, this means there is great potential for his environmentally friendly business to expand -- so long as enough people find out about it.
"We receive about 400 kilograms of organic waste per day. That produces about 130-150 kilograms of fertilizer," Qairgaliev told RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service during a recent ecological fair, where he was promoting the services of his new black soldier fly farm.
"At the moment we are working with 27 restaurants. We want to begin working with schools, too," he added.
It is the dark, metallic-bodied flies, which are about 2 centimeters long, that are the agents of this highly efficient conversion, explaining why farms like Qairgaliev's have emerged in countries all over the world in the last decade or so.
Their hungry larvae can devour large volumes of organic waste starting just a week after they are hatched, helping to produce a nutrient-rich compost at several times the speed of traditional compost heaps.
As they do so, they are helping reduce landfill emissions of methane -- the second-most-prevalent greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide and the most potent in terms of heating up the planet in proportional terms.
A Small Assist For Kazakhstan's Big Methane Pledge
At the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai in 2023 (COP 28), Kazakhstan became the first Central Asian country to join the Global Methane Pledge, a commitment shared by more than 150 countries that obligates members to a 30 percent reduction in emissions of the gas by 2030.
The overwhelming focus of Kazakhstan's commitment will be in the oil and gas sector, which is by far the energy-rich country's biggest methane-emissions source and the second-largest globally, after agriculture.
Third on the global methane-culprit list? Organic waste, rotting in landfills.
According to the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, an initiative backed by the United Nations Environment Program, black-soldier-fly (BSF) technology is one of two "underfinanced yet highly effective solutions to reduce the emissions impact of organic waste," along with bio-covers, which are applied directly at landfills.
In addition to creating fertilizer of varying quality, BSF entrepreneurs can also use the larvae from the flies to create valuable and environmentally sustainable feed for other industries such as fish farms.
Qairgaliev is not asking for any financial help from the government.
He says his business is profitable despite costing his clients less than traditional waste collection.
But he argues that authorities could at least raise awareness about sustainable business and ensure that different types of household waste are sorted before collection.
In the past, authorities have made only half-hearted efforts in this regard, he says.
“[There was a time] when [separate] yellow containers appeared. But it didn't work at all," he said. "In the end only one rubbish truck came. And then it just took everything to the landfill.”
Reducing Waste At Ground Level
Kazakhstan's government has admitted that it is not doing enough when it comes to environmentally friendly waste management.
Less than one-quarter of the 4 million tons of municipal waste last year was processed in any way, authorities say.
Other assessments are even more damning.
At a conference in April organized by Atameken, Kazakhstan’s leading business lobby, industry experts said only around 3.5 percent of the 100,000 tons of plastic deposited on landfills across the country in 2023 was recycled.
In March, Environment Minister Erlan Nysanbaev pledged that 37 plants would be built in the near future to recycle solid waste.
But sustainability has to come from the bottom as well as the top.
One organization that is trying to raise awareness at the ground level is Recycle.Birge (We Recycle Together) which holds regular "eco-subbotniki" in Almaty.
The idea of a subbotnik comes from the voluntary workdays -- often city clean-up days -- organized during the Soviet Union.
But here the emphasis is on collecting and sorting waste into very specific categories, with bins for different types of plastics, metals, cosmetic and medical waste, batteries, and more.
In some cases, the beneficiaries of these drives are local "eco-entrepreneurs" who turn waste into sellable products, like Yury Kirdyushkin, whose Plastic Harahura project has used around 3 tons of plastic waste in the last two years to create new objects and art.
But more important, according to the organizers, is the introduction of a culture of recycling, and the spread of the message about what items can still be reused.
Leila Mukhitdinova, known to her friends as "Farmer Leila" is doing something similar, albeit on a slightly smaller scale, via the 100-member WhatsApp group that she administers called Eco-Guardians.
The group discusses the finer questions of waste disposal and recycling, such as whether tea bags can be placed on compost heaps, and what environmentally friendly options there are for the disposal of expired medicines.
Mukhitdinova, who says that she hasn't bought new clothes in 20 years, benefits from the group too.
Many of her members now offer their waste food to the chickens and goats that she keeps at her farm outside Almaty instead of throwing it away.
But she is proud of the fact that many of her group's members are now keen composters -- a hobby that remains rare in Kazakhstan -- and are aiding the effort to reduce the landfill burden.
"[WhatsApp] chats like this are important because we might look a bit strange from the outside. Sometimes even our relatives think that we are strange, almost crazy. And that is why we need to support each other. People should understand that they are not the only ones," Mukhitdinova told RFE/RL.
