18-year-old Texas student Ananya Gulur Nagendra builts an ant-powered food waste digester; it achieved 83% efficiency

Food wastage has reached unprecedented levels worldwide. According to the UNEP Food Waste Index Report 2024, the total cost of food loss and waste to the global economy is estimated at roughly US$1 trillion. The report states that one-fifth of the food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted globally, amounting to around one billion meals every day.

Apart from the economic impact, food wastage also poses an environmental problem when discarded food ends up in landfills, where it contributes to methane emissions. According to the Society for Science, food waste accounts for about 58% of methane emissions from landfills.

To address the issue, an 18-year-old student from Plano, Texas, Ananya Gulur Nagendra, developed a prototype that uses ants to help break down food waste.


Nagendra's unusual approach earned her a place among the finalists of the 2026 Regeneron Science Talent Search. Her research explored whether ants could be used in an aerobic digester to process food waste and potentially reduce methane emissions from landfills.

How ants could help tackle food waste

Nagendra's research began by testing four ant species to determine how much food waste each species could consume per ant every day. The experiments identified Camponotus castaneus as the most effective species among those tested.

The species also recorded the highest metabolic rate, making it the strongest candidate for Nagendra's proposed waste-processing system.

Nagendra then developed a model to estimate how diverting food waste to an ant-based system could affect methane emissions. She used the amount of waste consumed by the ants to estimate the potential environmental benefit.

She subsequently designed an ant-based aerobic digester, which allows decomposition to take place in the presence of oxygen.

Testing of the prototype achieved an efficiency of approximately 83%, according to the Society for Science. Nagendra also estimated that a larger version of the system could potentially be built for less than $50,000.

However, the project remains an early-stage student research prototype. The results do not establish that ant-based digesters are ready to replace existing landfill or commercial waste-management systems.

Further research would be needed to determine how the system performs with different types and volumes of food waste, how effectively ants can operate over longer periods, and whether the approach can be scaled.

Why Nagendra's research stands out

Nagendra was selected as a finalist in the 2026 Regeneron Science Talent Search, which recognises students for the originality and creativity of their research, as well as their achievements and leadership.

The 2026 finalist group included students from 35 schools across 15 states. They were selected from 300 scholars and 2,612 entrants, with more than $1.8 million in prizes available, including a top prize of $250,000.

Nagendra's project takes a different approach to a familiar environmental problem. Rather than treating ants simply as scavengers attracted to discarded food, her research examines whether their natural feeding behaviour can be incorporated into a controlled biological waste-processing system.

The 83% efficiency achieved by the prototype does not mean the food waste problem has been solved. However, it provides an early indication that naturally occurring biological processes could potentially be explored alongside conventional approaches to waste management.

For Nagendra, the project represents a progression from testing individual ant species to developing a mathematical model and ultimately building a functioning prototype — an unconventional experiment that could provide a starting point for further research into sustainable food-waste management.