This Singapore start-up is using insects to turn waste into treasure 课文原文 必修1 日常阅读理解训练.doc

This Singapore start-up is using insects to turn waste into treasureSingapore-based farmer Chua Kai-Ning spends a lot of her day making sure that her animals are well fed and growing fast.But shes no ordinary farmer, and these arent ordinary animals.Chua and her partner, Phua Jun Wei, founded start-up Insectta in 2017. They are dealing with Singapores food waste with the help of an unlikely ally: the black soldier fly larva (黑水虻幼虫).“The goal of Insectta is that nothing goes to waste,” said Chua. “Waste can be reimagined as a resource if we change how we think about our production methods, and how we deal with waste.”In 2020, Singapore created 665,000 metric tons of food waste only 19% of which was recycled.Chua said the company feeds the black soldier fly larvae up to eight tons of food waste per month, including byproducts received from soybean factories and breweries (啤酒厂). Insectta can then flash dry the larvae into animal feed, and turn the insects excrement into agricultural fertilizer (将昆虫的排泄物变成农业肥料).While there are plenty of companies using insects to manage waste, including Goterra, Better Origin and AgriProtein, Insectta is getting more than agricultural products from black soldier flies. With funding from Trendlines Agrifood Fund, Insectta is taking high-value biomaterials (生物材料) from the byproducts of these larvae.“During R&D, we realized that a lot of valuable biomaterials that already have market value can be taken from these flies,” Chua told CNN Business. The start-up hopes its biomaterials can encourage the growing insect-based product industry and change the way we look at waste.Insectta has developed a new technology to get biomaterials from the hard outer coverings fully-grown flies leave behind. One of these biomaterials is chitosan (壳聚糖), sometimes used in cosmetic and pharmaceutical products (化妆品和药品). Now, a face mask brand Vi-Mask uses chitosan from crab shells (蟹壳) in its products. The company says that to use insect-based chitosan is an environmentally friendly move, as Insecttas chitosan is more sustainably sourced.“Theres a change in production and consumption, and people want sustainable products,” Chua said. “Insects can support that and help lower the environmental influence.”第 3 页 共 3 页