Princeton High Students Use Bugs To Combat Food Waste, Make Beauty Products

PRINCETON, NJ — Students at Princeton High School came up with a project to address food waste and combat greenhouse gas emissions in local landfills that won them recognition in a national competition.

In the process, they also created soap made out of bug oil by working with insects, particularly the black soldier fly.

The project was recently named a New Jersey state winner in the Samsung "Solve for Tomorrow"
contest, a nationwide competition that challenges students in grades six through 12 to creatively use science, technology, engineering and math skills to address real-world issues in their communities.

Teacher Mark Eastburn of Princeton High School's research program helped them out.

The project began in late 2019 and early 2020 when Eastburn’s daughter, Sharon, a junior, was working on a project to address food waste. Sharon and fellow student Matthew Livingston were trying to find different ways to address the issue when they discovered that black soldier fly larvae were able to break down organic waste. They built bioreactors with repurposed material.

“And what we planned on doing was taking an oil drum, filling it with food waste, and then putting a bunch of black soldiers fly larvae in them,” Livingston said. “The black soldier flies are so special that they can basically decompose any sort of organic material.”

After they break down the waste, the larvae can be used as sustainable chicken feed or fish feed, the students discovered.

Students also found uses for the waste produced after the larvae were done eating the material. "Bug poop, also called frass, can be used as a fertilizer for growing plants and could possibly have uses in agriculture, which would further add to the sustainability of this project," said Katherine Monroe, a grade 11 student.

Taking the project further, the students also began extracting oil from the larvae to make soap. They are on a mission to convince people that bug oil is a great component to one's beauty regimen.

“We need to find a new solution to minimize the usage of palm oil, a disruptive commodity, which is why we're proposing the usage of black soldier fly oil to make soaps,” junior Ngan Le said.

The black soldier fly is a tropical species not easily found in Princeton. Students ordered the larvae on eBay and took care of them in the lab, where they used a special setup that mimicked the tropical sun. The flies bred in the lab helped the students “keep the generations going.”

More than 15 students from the science, technology, engineering and mathematics stream now collaborate on the project. The next step is to submit a video that will be considered for the next level of the national competition.

“We're competing against 100 other schools,” Eastburn said. “But hopefully we will be selected as national finalists. It's very rigorous and challenging. But we are certainly devoting the time required to make this happen.”

With so many diverse groups of students working together, the students decided to name their project “The Bug That Brings Us Together."

“It's been an amazing opportunity to see that every student who wants to get involved has a place where they can contribute. That, for me, has been the greatest reward,” Eastburn said.

Check out the work the students are doing on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok.

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