Team:DTU-Denmark/background
Background
Waste Management
In 2012 the global population passed 7 billion. It is estimated that it will reach 8 billion in 2026 and 9 billion around 2040. The increasing population of the world brings with it a number of challenges, not the least of which is management of the increasing waste generation.
Europe, and Denmark in particular, have worked on this for many years. One of the major goals of the European Union is to work towards a circular economy. A circular economy, as the EU defines it, is an economy with zero waste. This, of course, doesn't mean that waste is eliminated, merely that the entirety of our waste is recovered and recycled.
Denmark has been recycling and recovering waste for a long time. For more than a century, Denmark has incinerated waste and for many of those years, it has been one of the major heat and electricity sources. In recent years, great strides have been made towards recycling still greater amounts of waste. In 2015, 35% of our waste was recycled. Exact numbers for recovery are unfortunately unavailable, as the Danish system of incinerating both for energy recovery and to get rid of waste muddies the picture significantly, but the number likely exceeds 50%.
The EU(28) recovers approximately half of their waste, excluding energy recovery. The greater part of the remaining waste is incinerated.
Diabetes
With the rising population, the number of diabetics worldwide is increasing as well. The International Diabetes Federation estimates that in 2015, there were 415 million adults with diabetes. This is estimated to rise to 642 by 2040.
Insulin demand
Assuming that an average diabetic needs 15 units of insulin daily to live symptomfree, the global insulin demand would yearly be approximately 79 thousand tons of pure crystaline insulin and rise to more than 120 thousand tons by 2040. $$\frac{\text{Number of diabetics }\cdot 15 \text{ units day}^{-1} \cdot 365 \text{days}}{288118443.804 \text{ units ton}^{-1}} = \text{ Insulin demand (tons)} $$
Insulin production
In their annual report, Novo Nordisk estimates that of the 415 million adults with diabetes, only 6% receives full care. However, with increasingly broad access to drugs in areas of the world where expensive medication like insulin have previously been unavailable, this number can be expected to increase.
Insulin is produced using glucose as a substrate. Glucose is commonly refined from starch, which again is refined from eg. potatoes or corn. This means that arable land and food potentially fit for human consumption is being used to produce medication instead of feeding the ever increasing population. An approximation of the demand for arable land, starch and crops can be calculated with the expressions below:
$$ \frac{\text{Insulin Demand}}{0.05 \frac{\text{ton insulin}}{\text{ton glucose}}}\cdot 1 \frac{\text{ton starch}}{\text{ton glucose}} = \text{Starch demand} $$ $$ \frac{\text{Starch demand}}{0.17}\frac{\text{ton starch}}{\text{ton potato}} = \text{Potato demand (tons)}$$ $$ \frac{\text{Starch demand}}{0.34}\frac{\text{ton starch}}{\text{ton corn}} = \text{Corn demand (tons)} $$ $$ \frac{\text{Potato demand}}{17.4 \frac{\text{tons}}{\text{ha}}} = \text{Area demand (ha)} $$ $$ \frac{\text{Corn demand}}{5 \frac{\text{tons}}{\text{ha}}} = \text{Area demand (ha)} $$Using these and the estimations of insulin production gives the following demands:
| Year | Corn (tons) | Area (Corn) (ha) | Potato (tons) | Area (Potato) (ha) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 4637808.09 | 927561.618 | 9275616.177 | 533081.39 |
| 2040 | 7174633.235 | 1434926.647 | 14349266.47 | 824670.486 |
Our Project
Yeastilization, this year's DTU Biobuilders project, focuses creating a combined solution of the worlds future excessive consumption of crops for non-feed purposes and increasing waste generation. By using a non-traditional yeast, Yarrowia liplytica, as chassis, we provide a new avenue for production of biotech products. Y. lipolytica has a broader substrate range than the traditional workhorse of the biotech industry, S. cerevisiae, which allows for the use of industrial biproducts instead of primarily produced glucose.
Using organic waste from industry instead of glucose from the agricultural industry to produce insulin (or other Biotech products) could potentially open up massive areas of arable land for food production. With a rising population, increase of food production is absolutely essential and every bit counts.
