Insects and waste reduction: legal limits for substrates, species and purposes

Insects and waste reduction: legal limits for substrates, species and purposes. EXPO 2015 brought to the global attention some strategies that could contribute to ensuring a sustainable food production for a population that is constantly growing. The use of insects as food is one of the ideas which gained major consideration; nevertheless feed will probably be the sector where insects as protein alternative could most efficiently prove their potential. Moreover some species showed the ability to quickly digest organic leftovers and waste while transforming them into compost for agronomic purposes and to be split to obtain biomaterials to be used in several sectors. Abstractly insects farming could be the hypothetical phase of a circular economy closed circle, both for farms and industries working, for instance, in the vegetable processing. Concretely, however, the full implementation of such techniques is still facing legal obstacles, as for substrates and farmable species. After an overview of the state-of-the-art on possible uses of insects with circular economy purposes and of their environmental, social and economical benefits, the paper will focus on the legal limits that hinder their feasibility. The solutions that the article will offer could however be implemented only through a de iure condendo legislative intervention.