BSF Project publishes open designs, guides, and research for everyone in this chain. Registered communities (starting with Boquete) run pilots on the ground. Incentive and token concepts are being designed to credit multiple roles, not only tank operators—see the role catalog below.
Value flow
Organic waste moves in; biological products move out. Hardware and knowledge sit underneath as shared infrastructure.
- Organic waste suppliers → tank operators → yield consumers (larvae, frass, careful use of leachate)
- Hardware manufacturers build from open designs (CERN-OHL-P-2.0)
- R&D and publishers maintain the research hub, articles, and operator guides
- Platform / chapters coordinate registry, attribution, and future logistics
Role catalog
Hardware manufacturer
Fabricates tanks, stands, and kits from published BOMs and drawings—or ships compatible parts regionally.
- Inputs: designs, materials, skilled labor
- Outputs: finished units, parts, install services
- Value: lowers the skill bar for operators; commercial manufacture is explicitly allowed under OHL
- Start here: Designs · format policy
R&D and knowledge publisher
Runs feedstock trials, synthesizes literature, and publishes traceable claims—not anecdote in a forum thread.
- Inputs: field data, papers, operator feedback
- Outputs: claims, guides, articles, design improvements
- Value: de-risks diets and hardware (e.g. spent coffee inclusion rates, ramp angles, frass field rates)
- Start here: Research · Contribute
Tank operator
Runs the conversion unit—from a 5-gallon household bucket to a 55-gallon compound drum or a modular stack hub.
- Inputs: feedstock, larvae, hardware, labor, shade
- Outputs: harvested larvae, frass, leachate (separate streams—see leachate vs frass)
- Value: core biological node; local waste stays out of rot and runoff
- Start here: Waste stream · Biology guide · Tank design
Organic waste supplier
Delivers separated organics to operators. This role is often the bottleneck: operators need volume and consistency; suppliers need pickup economics and clear liability.
- Inputs: their by-product stream, bins, collection labor
- Outputs: feed batches, avoided disposal cost, optional revenue share
- Value: without reliable feed, drums sit idle
- Start here: Waste stream — sorting and restaurant bucket pickup patterns
Feedstock tiers
| Tier | Examples | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| A — clean, consistent | Spent coffee grounds, brewery grain, steady bakery trim | Boquete pilots coffee grounds as a blend ingredient (~20% fermented SCG in mixed pulp under cited trials—not a sole diet). Diet claim. Volume planning: a café often yields ~8–10 kg wet SCG/day (generation claim); restaurants commonly ~15–20 kg sorted food waste/day (claim). |
| B — agricultural | Manure, crop residues, fruit pulp | Larvae handle many manures well when moisture and oxygen stay in range; blend and watch ammonia. Product-use rules for larvae/frass may still apply. |
| C — animal processing | Meat trim, offal, chorizo leftovers, abattoir streams where legal | Larvae often thrive on these dense streams—high conversion, impressive performance. Rapid spoilage and odor mean fast dump cycles; strict QA and local rules for any feed-chain sale—example: small shop feeding a compound drum |
Structural gaps today: no standard supplier–operator contract; misaligned incentives; diet information asymmetry; liability fear on tiers B/C; aggregation cost when many small sources feed one drum. Chapter-level logistics and future incentive rails should target this role explicitly.
Yield consumer
Uses larvae for feed or frass for soil—where regulations and batch quality allow.
- Inputs: larvae, cured frass, derived frass tea
- Outputs: animal growth, soil fertility, replacement for conventional inputs
- Start here: Frass · Frass tea
Platform and community coordinator
Maintains open IP, the public site, research hub, and registered communities; experiments with verification and incentives without paywalling core docs.
- Start here: Communities · Contribute
Open content maps to roles
- Manufacturers — SVG, CSV, BUILD docs under each design scale
- Operators — guides, tank-design article, community playbooks
- Suppliers — feedstock tiers (above), Boquete coffee integration, diet research, generation-rate claims
- R&D — research hub, sourcing policy, attribution ledger
- Consumers — output articles and application-rate claims
Machine-readable catalog
Role definitions for apps and agents: /data/economy-roles.json
Research trail (supplier example): Fermented SCG inclusion (~20%).