UTTAR PRADESH JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY

Pre-cocoon sericulture links perennial mulberry production with intensive silkworm rearing, creating biologically rich residual streams whose management affects farm hygiene, nutrient cycling, environmental performance and the feasibility of circular production. Yet the literature frequently treats “sericulture waste” as a single category and combines farm-stage residues with post-cocoon pupal, reeling and degumming wastes. This critical narrative review examines waste generated before cocoon processing, with emphasis on mulberry pruning biomass, surplus and rejected foliage, rearing-bed residues, silkworm excrement, moulting debris, diseased or dead larvae, cocooning and mountage residues, and minor auxiliary wastes. Literature published from January 1990 to 7 August 2026 was evaluated through agricultural, biomedical and multidisciplinary scholarly sources, citation searching and authoritative sericulture guidance. The evidence shows that the most developed management pathway is biological stabilisation, particularly composting and vermicomposting of clean organic residues, while microbial inoculation and additives can accelerate decomposition or modify humification. These interventions are not impact-free: odour, nitrogenous emissions, incomplete sanitisation and variable maturity remain important constraints. Direct land application and specialised remediation uses of silkworm excrement are supported by pot, field and mechanistic studies, but microbiological hazards and contaminant carry-over preclude assuming that all material is intrinsically safe. Pyrolysis, biochar and adsorbent applications offer a controlled route for selected feedstocks, including contaminated excrement, although evidence is mainly experimental and requires economic and emissions evaluation. Clean surplus mulberry foliage can enter feed chains, but this route should not be extrapolated to spent litter or disease-associated material. Across the evidence base, the largest unresolved problem is not a shortage of valorisation concepts but the absence of standardised source-specific generation factors, mass balances, contaminant specifications, pathogen-inactivation criteria and long-term field validation. A risk-tiered circular management framework is therefore proposed in which prevention, segregation and biosecurity precede valorisation. The strongest immediate opportunity is source-separated recycling of clean plant and rearing residues under verified treatment conditions, integrated with mulberry nutrient management and local monitoring.