Fermentation Of Sea Food Waste - A Novel Solution To

Environmental Problem
Facts About Fishery In India

•Fishery has been a traditional occupation

for the coastal inhabitants of India.
•States like West Bengal, Kerala, Orissa and
Andhra Pradesh have been the pioneers in
the field of fishery in India.
•It has been a vital source of food,
employment, recreation, trade and
economic well being for the people of this
region.
•There are many large and small scale fish
industries in these regions involved in the
cultivation, packing and marketing of sea
food.
•The global sea food market has expanded
so rapidly that to fulfill the ever increasing
demand these industries are now at a stage
where most fishes are being harvested to
their limit.
Facts About Fishery In India contd..

food sufficiency attained by

India is at the cost of our environment.
•In aquaculture over cultivation with excess feed,
nutrients and fertilizers leads to chocked pond
with dead algae, unwanted chemicals and huge
amount of shells.
•In food industry system also — food production,
processing, transportation, storage, distribution
and marketing —create wastes of different quality
and quantity.
•This ever increasing waste has greatly increased
the disposal problems and has lead to severe
pollution problems.
•This waste is directly subjected to harmful acids
for degradation without any primary treatment or
dumped in open bodies of water and landfills,
other methods include incineration, composting
etc.
Environmental Hazards …..

•These methods make the land

barren and unfit for further use.
•The use of such harmful and
hazardous acids results in a harmful
effluent wastewater.
•It also results in foul smell due to
long term dumping and various viral
diseases thus are generated.
• Thus the sea food processing
activities have raised serious waste
production and disposal concerns all
over the globe.
• This gives rise to severe skin
diseases and other health diseases.
Environmental Hazards Contd…..

•The increasing acidity in water specially sea water has caused a major
loss to the aquatic life.
What Should do be Done?

•To promote some environmentally acceptable and

biologically safe methods to dispose and decompose fish
waste
• Recent advances in biotechnology have provided
methods with great potential which not only degrade
waste but also help to produce value from fish waste.
•Fermentation is one of the novel biotechnological
methods which uses microbes for the production of mild
organic acids which not only help to degrade the sea food
waste but further help in the extraction of various
byproducts.
•Microbes of Acetobacter genus and other microbes like
Clostridium Acetobutylicum that secrete acetic acid or
microbes like Lactobacillus plantarum or Lactobacillus
casei can also be used which secrete lactic acid.
There are thousands of other species of microbes that can
be used for fermentation.
Advantages of fermentation for degradation…

•It is a fast process and only takes a day or two to degrade

the whole biomass, therefore dumping can be ignored.
•It is a cheap method of degradation since the byproducts
received are of great value and high price in the market.
•No harmful effluents are released.
•It also gives high productivities of by products with
extended stability of products and low production costs,
which say much about such an intensive biotechnological
application.
•Example of some byproducts… chitin/chitosan from
crustaceans, biodiesel, fish oil, bio ethanol, cattle fodder, fish
gelatin and silage from non edible tissues and organs thrown
during the processing of fish as waste.
What can Be
done with so
much of sea
food waste ?
Silage (cattle fodder)

•Silage is a fermented, high-moisture fodder.

•It is prepared by a fermentation process called
Ensilage.
•Ensilage is anaerobic fermentation, which
starts about 48 hours after the waste slurry is
filled in the presence of microbes.
•The process converts sugars to acids and
exhausts any oxygen present in the material.
The proscess essentially gets completed after
about two weeks.
•Silage inoculants contain one or more strains
of lactic acid bacteria , and some other robust
microbe species like, Enterococcus faecium .
Advantages of using Silage…..

•Fish silage is basically a substitute for the protein

ingredients used to feed cattle; it can also be used for
feeding aquatic organisms. Preparation of fish silage
from fish waste is an alternative to solve sanitary and
environmental problems caused by the lack of
adequate disposition for the waste from the fish
industry.

•Besides, it is also a way of decreasing feeding costs,

and, consequently, fish production costs. Thus the
high protein content of silage makes it a wonderful
substitute for animal fodder.
Fish Meal…

•Making fish meal is a traditional old method . But the drawback is that
the processing of fish waste is high energy consuming, costly and usually
overheats the waste, making it less digestible.
•On the other hand when microbes like Aspergillus awamori are mixed
together with dried minced fish waste and kept for fermentation in a
ventilated incubator for 5 days at 40°C it ends up with the formation of
an excellent fish meal.
•This fish meal has high protein content and digestibility of the fish meal
is also improved by the enzymes produced during the fermentation.
Use of Fish Meal..

•Fish meal is used as a high protein supplement in

acqua culture feed.
•Standard fishmeal is blended with other
ingredients and used as animal feed
Fish waste Hydrolyzate…….

•After the edible portion is removed for human consumption, the

remaining fish body, (like the guts, bones, cartilage, scales, meat,
etc.), is ground up with water and a slurry is formed.

•These are then subjected to fungal fermentation which would

release enzymes which solubilizes bones, scale and meat.

•Depending on the kind of waste different types of hydrolysates are

prepared which can be used for different purposes. If purchasing fish
hydrolysate for agricultural applications, one should look at the label
carefully for the concentration of mineral elements in the liquid.

There is a lot of information on the many uses of fish hydrolysate -

from its use as a fish-based fertilizer, to its use as an animal food, or
even for human consumption.
Action Taken by India……
 It has been a age old practice in the North Eastern part of our country
to compost vegetable , meat and fruit waste and use it as organic
fertilizer in farming.
 To tap this emerging opportunity the Govt. of India has formulated the
NATIONAL PROJECT ON ORGANIC FARMING WITH AN OUTLAY
OF 92 CRORE.
 It envisages to set 50 model organic farming in the country and provide
assistance for setting up commercial production units of bio- fertilisers
made by such latest technologies.
 Their main aim is to produce those agro products that earn the highest
revenue. A number of NGO,s have come forward to help our farmers.
Food colour….

•Astaxanthin, is a carotenoid present in crustaceans as a protein-

pigment complex.

•This colour is used as food colour in many food processing industries.

•These natural carotenoids are an alternative to synthetic orange-red

pigments.

•In order to extract this highly useful natural pigment, crustacean waste
are washed, dried and subjected to lactic acid fermentation and then
removed from the broth by various organic solvent systems techniques.

•These food colours are completely natural and healthy and in no way
can cause any harm to the processing of human body as done by
synthetic food colours.
 Biomaterial

•Crustacean shells like that of shrimps, prawns crabs etc when fermented
in the presence of any bacteria producing mild acids like acetic acid or
lactic acid leads to the production of a polysaccharide named chitin.(N-
acetyl-d-glucosamine ).
•Making Chitin out of crustacean waste through fermentation is a simple
method and does not require any skilled manpower or complex
machinery nor does this method produce any harmful byproduct or
effluent.
•A promising polymer for biomedical
applications because of its biocompatibility,
biodegradability.

•An excellent material for wound-dressing.

•Food Industries for making edible chocolate

covers
Biogas…..
•Producing biogas is a very effective way of taking care of waste as it can be
used for heat, electricity and vehicle fuel.
•Biogas is the product of fermentation using methanogenic bacteria which
digests the organic matters present in the sea food waste. Biogas qualifies on
the merits that this technology utilizes sea food waste and converts it to fuel
and fertilizer.
•Direct impacts of biogas are agriculture residue, livestock manure, and fuel
savings.
Bio-Ethanol

•Bio-ethanol is future energy.

• It is basically prepared from agricultural products and wastes but food

security concerns and risks to environment and biodiversity are
parameters that necessarily need to be assessed while analyzing
sustainability linkage of agriculture and bio ethanol.

•Fermentation of sea food waste for the production of bioethanol has

proved to be a major breakthrough technology, creating an alternate
feedstock for ethanol production.
FISH OILS….

•Fermented fish oils are extracted without any complex

machinery and methodology but rather by a simple process
of natural lacto-fermentation.
•Non edible tissues and other organ tissue which are
discarded as waste by the fish processing industries are
selected and used as the source of the fermented fish oils.

Fig 2. Fish oil recovery from fish waste by lactic acid fermentation
Fish Oils…

•This fish oil contains lots of nutrients and can be used as a dietary
supplement. These oils are also deep rich in pigment, which increases its
nutritive value.
•This oil also contains quinone complex which constitutes of nutrients such as
vitamin K, E, CoQ enzymes and other known and unknown
nutrients/components and polyunsaturated fatty acids. The oil also contains
over 3000 derivatives of vitamin D.

Scientific studies have proved that the consumption of fish or fish oil containing
omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) reduces the risk of coronary heart
disease, decreases mild hypertension, prevents certain cardiac arrhythmia and
sudden death, lowers the incidence of diabetes, and appears to alleviate symptoms
of rheumatoid arthritis.
Biodiesel

•Fish oil when prepared through poor non technological methods or when
extracted from highly filthy fish waste and is unsuitable for human intake
can be used for the preparation of biodiesel.

•Fish oil is mixed with methanol (roughly 10%) and other products like
caustic soda (in order to separate the glycerin from the biodiesel.)This
method can provide livelihoods, and produce local energy avoiding GHG
emissions. With little investment in already existing fish farms local energy
can be produced at very little cost.

•Biodiesel from fish residue/waste could also promote more efficient

utilization of aquatic living resources and generate additional income for
fishers' and fish farmers' communities.

•These fish farms could provide income from the production and export of
fish fillets and produce relatively cost-free local energy. It could therefore
have a positive impact on food security and energy security.
CONCLUSIONS …….

•The conversion of sea food waste using fermentation, can bring great
economical advantages to the industry, besides solving a great problem of
managing the waste discharged, which are pollutant in nature.
• The reduction of the lipids content as well as the inclusion of anti-
oxidants in the preparation of edible byproducts using fermentation will
further enhance the demand and hence lead to an increased production of
such formulations.
•It is a quick and cheap process and helps in the formation of many stable
byproducts. Which makes it economically viable.
• However research should be intensified to improve efficiency in waste
treatment and to minimize waste in food processing and manufacturing
operations through advanced manufacturing practices, and constructive
utilization of what is unavoidable by bioconversion of by-products and
waste into edible food, feed or industrial chemicals in order to decrease
environmental loadings as a consequence of better integrated waste
management.