Septic Treatments and Soldier Flies

Sustainability practices can be improved by finding more environmentally beneficial ways of disposing of personal waste. Instead of pumping out septic sewage from your home into the waste water system, you can go a long way in promoting cleaner water by recycling that waste with black soldier flies. Unlike the common house fly, the black soldier fly avoids humans, does not spread disease and, in its larvae stage, can eat pounds of waste in just one day.

Plan Ahead

• Plan out how you can take care of necessary bodily functions before pumping out your septic system. Although black soldier flies will clear out waste, they will take a couple of days to do so. Your bodily functions will not stop just because your septic tank is out of commission. Do not begin this process without having other facilities that you will be able to use.

Pump the Tank

• Have a septic service company pump your septic tank or outhouse of any water. This will dry out the septic tank environment enough so that the black soldier flies can survive without drowning. Although possible to perform yourself, you should contact a septic service company due to the noxious gases and the risk of injury associated with septic pumping.

Using Black Soldier Flies

• Purchase a starter colony of black soldier flies. Starter colonies are often available in the egg stage from either your local nursery or a home & gardening mail-order retail stores. One such mail-order company is Gardens Alive (gardensalive.com).

  Introduce the starter colony into the waste environment you would like to dispose of. Once the larvae have hatched from their eggs, one square meter of black soldier fly larva will ingest 33 pounds of putrescent, or decaying, waste in 24 hours. Newly laid black soldier fly eggs can take up to 105 hours to hatch, so the eggs may need to sit on the waste for some time. The larvae will reach maturity in about two weeks, although colder temperatures may extend that stage as long as six months.

  Once the larvae turn into adult soldier flies, they will leave the waste area for a few days. Adult soldier flies only live up to eight days, and as a result do not have mouths. This drastically reduces the risk of soldier flies passing on diseases and other pathogens. Black soldier flies are renowned for not being pests, and will generally stay away from human beings. If there is any waste left in the septic tank, the flies may return to lay more eggs, thus repeating the cycle.

Finishing

• Start running your septic system again once the black soldier fly larvae have ingested enough waste. This will inevitably kill a few larvae, but you've already cleaned out the bulk of the waste in your septic system. If using black soldier flies in an outhouse, black soldier flies should keep returning generation after generation until the waste has been completely devoured.