What's in your waste? - A resource for trade businesses

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Bibliography

Appendix 1: Food production

Appendix 2: Medical and related businesses

Appendix 3: Textile related industries

Appendix 4: Motor vehicle services

Appendix 5: Photography and printing industries

Appendix 6: Other manufacturing industries

 

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Appendix 1: Food Production

This appendix contains the food production industries that were studied for the What’s in your waste? report. These included dairy production and seafood processing.

A1.1a Dairy production – cheese and milk powder
ANZSIC Code: C217300

Industry contacts

NZMP Whareroa, PO Box 444, Hawera

NZMP Hamilton, PO Box 459, Hamilton

A1.1b Seafood processing
ANZSIC Code: C217300

Industry contacts

The New Zealand Seafood Industry Council Ltd, Private Bag 24-901, Wellington, Website: www.seafood.co.nz

A1.2 Cleaner production case studies

By looking at the ‘big picture’, businesses can assess areas in their operation where they can minimise or manage waste. This is called Cleaner Production and means:

• avoiding or reducing the amount of waste produced;
• using energy and resources efficiently;
• producing environmentally sound products and services;
• achieving less waste, lower costs and higher profits. (Source: www.arc.govt.nz)

The aim of Cleaner Production is to reduce the adverse impacts of production and service activities on the environment. Implementing Cleaner Production practices has many benefits. These include consistent and significant reductions in energy and water consumption, waste disposal, emissions and associated costs including trade waste discharge costs and landfill charges. Many of these improvements result from simple "good housekeeping" changes or implementing ideas from workers themselves. Often, once Cleaner Production has been achieved in one area of the business, it becomes easier to see other areas in which it can be achieved.

A number of New Zealand companies have been involved in a series of projects that demonstrate the benefits of Cleaner Production. These businesses have received considerable support and assistance from BusinessCare and Christchurch City Council’s Target Zero team. Some examples of Cleaner Production initiatives are included in this section. As the New Zealand case studies do not cover the entire range of businesses researched for this report, some of the included examples are from Australia. Where this is the case, it is important to remember that the costs and savings identified are in $AUS.

This section is intended to show what can be done by businesses and does not in any way suggest that this is what the Ministry for the Environment thinks should be done. The businesses shown in the case studies may not carry out the exact processes outlined in the tables above, however they are in the same type of industry. A list of websites containing further information on Cleaner Production case studies is shown in the Bibliography.

A.1.2a Dairy

New Zealand Dairy Group

Dairy manufacturer employing 3500 staff with an annual turnover of $2 billion.

Projects implemented

• Recovery of separator desludge – milk removed from machine was removed from the general waste and used as stock food.
• Reverse osmosis plant – allowed the ability to:
  • recover diluted whey solids previously irrigated onto farms
  • increase potential reuse of water from milk products to 2500 m³ per day
  • increase the resource of clean water, reusing up to 1000 m³ per day for cleaning.
• Expansion of plant. The plant was expanded with the objective of processing all the sweet whey on site and recovering all permeate for lactose. This allows the recovery of milk solids on site.

Economic benefits

• Total cost: not identified.
• Total savings:
  • separator desludge $10,000
  • reverse osmosis: $200,000
  • plant expansion: $5,000,000 (up to this amount for product recovery).
• Payback period: not identified.

Benefits

• Reduced waste disposal.
• Resource recovery.
• Reduction of fresh water intake for cleaning, etc.
• Reduction in nitrate leads to the wastewater irrigation farms.

Constraints

• The capital costs of expansion have been a hurdle. However, these are expected to fall as the number of uses of the reverse osmosis technology increases.

For the full article see: www.emcentre.com/unepweb/tec_case/food_15/house/h10.htm

Mainland products

A dairy food processing plant processing about 125 million litres of milk each year into a range of milk and cultured food products.

Projects implemented

• Reducing pipe work – removing redundant sections of pipes between sterilisers and fillers reduced amount of milk that had to be discarded.
• Cultured food batch size rationalisation – changing from two tanks to one large one reduced product loss and wastage from draining, product transfer, and washing two tanks.

Economic benefits

• Total costs: $2000.
• Total savings: $65,000/annum.
• Payback period: less than two weeks.

Benefits

• Reduced trade waste discharge volume and loading.
• Increased production.

Constraints

• None that were identified.

For the full article see: www.businesscare.org.nz/material/caseStudies/c212_1.html

A1.2b Seafood

New Zealand Fish Products Ltd

A fish-waste processing plant.

Projects implemented

• Biofilter – Biofilter was installed to deal with fish odour released from the cooker.
• Tanks – the 240l open tanks were replaced by five closed 8000l ones. This meant the fish did not need to be processed immediately and allowed more flexibility if the volume was too low for processing.
• Efficient cooker – a more efficient cooker was purchased.
• Optimisation of decanter performance – lead to improved product recovery and quality, and improved stickwater quality.

Economic benefits

• Total cost: $155,000 +$4000 operating costs.
• Expected savings: over $100,000 plus the potential for income generated from the sale of thickening float as a fertiliser.
• Payback period: 18 months.

Benefits

• Reduction in odour resulting in better relationship with neighbouring businesses and residents.
• Compliance with resource consent for odour and trade waste discharge.
• Energy savings.
• Water savings.
• Reduced water use and discharge from cleaning.
• Improved product quality and product recovery.

Constraints

• None identified.

For the full article see: www.businesscare.org.nz/material/caseStudies/c214_1.html

 

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