Closing The Loop

10/01/2020

Oriental cockroach, Blatta orientalis. Also goes by water bug or black beetle since the adult form is black to brown. This is a nymph. After hatching from the ootheca they are this red color for about 6 months. Their entire life span is about a 1 - 1 1/2 years. They are flightless but do have a set of reduced sized front wings called tegmina. But these are vestigial, left over from evolution with no use like our tails, which makes them brachypterous. They are also called water bugs because they hang around water and moisture. Most people encounter these insects around sewers or in damp places in the home. These guys and gals were in a dying willow tree we removed that was spongy and rotting inside. Though we consider them pests because they get into our homes and reproduce awesomely, their function in nature is to clean up decaying organic matter. Helping to break it down and making the locked away nutrients and materials bio available to nature again. And the red of the nymph, when not seen from an infestation of one’s home, is quite a beautiful red.

09/30/2020

Female Valley Carpenter Bee, Xylocopa sonorina. These bees are very docile unless attacked. The males are a golden color and give off pheromones so females can find them. They eat nectar and pollen and get their name from how the bore into wood with their mandibles. They don’t eat the wood but make nests there sealing up the eggs in side chambers with the sawdust they create. The tunnels range from 6-10 inches long and the females will overwinter in the tunnels. The females make a mixture of nectar and pollen called bee bread which they lay their eggs on for the larvae to feed. Look at those beautiful eyes!

09/29/2020

Mojave green

09/28/2020

Leaf footed bug, Acanthocephala terminalis. Found these guys up on the roof hanging out. When I tried to coax one onto my hand it shot a foul smelling liquid from its tail end. It shot it about 18-24”, 1 1/2-2 feet!

@ Jerome, Arizona

09/28/2020

Araneus gemmoides with a grasshopper.

01/08/2020

We spent 5 years removing food waste from the landfill in San Diego and sold the company in 2018.

Since then our previous COO has started a new consulting firm for helping businesses succeed at food waste diversion. This includes a lot of networking and meetings with city and state officials.

The new company Conscious Creators, LLC is based in Northern Arizona.

Closing the Loop will have a similar mission recycling food waste but with an emphasis on using bugs to create more value added products to the up-cycle stream.

Since it takes time and money to create profitable business in this sector, Closing the Loop will be a DBA of our the larger LLC.

Much of the work done now to recycle food waste in Northern Arizona is done for free.

It’s a hard mission to push for but we are hopeful for collaboration in the near future to divert more and more food waste from the landfill.

Education is key. So if you have questions about info we post on our numerous platforms please ask! Our mission is to help low waste become easy to understand. Not everyone focuses on trash. We’re here to make it easier to do.

Gratefully,

Follow Bri on IG or YouTube 👇
here.now

01/05/2020

Great info on my YouTube channel today! Link in bio!

01/05/2020

https://youtu.be/jw_KlDI-3PU

05/06/2019

We highly encourage everyone to watch this profound series as a whole.

This particular episode is close to our hearts. Watching children walk barefoot through massive floating garbage patches to find anything they can of value.

Our Global view of waste streams will shift with our help.

It is the responsibility of all people of Earth to stop over consuming and undervaluing, first each other and second our waste.

We know how the second one sounds but are not afraid to shift the paradigm and bring lastly change for all inhabitants of our home, Earth.

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