Every now and then I am totally surprised by something new, or at least new to me. This article in yesterday’s SF Chronicle was one of those surprises. The article discusses black soldier flies, and their dominant life stage as maggots. While not good for all types of composting, they are useful for reducing large volumes of waste food or manure. They can eat meat and dairy wastes, as well as dog and cat feces, so they are useful for closing the loop on those wastes, which aren’t recommended for traditional small-scale or home composting or vermi-composting. At present, my worm bin handles my food trimmings (I have no meat or dairy waste) and my yard trimmings are composted traditionally. So, I don’t have a need for these maggots as part of my organic recycling programming at present. But, I will keep this new technique in mind and expore it more fully should my needs change in the future.