Plaudits for waste system

By Philippa Stevenson

An Auckland company has built on 20-year-old meat industry research to create rendering plants that continue to turn waste into money-earning products despite rock-bottom commodity prices.

In the late 1970s, a study by chemical engineer Tissa Fernando found meat company rendering plants bug-ridden and inefficient.

With $10 million of industry funding, the then head of the by-products section of the Meat Industry Research Institute set about developing a low temperature rendering system for New Zealand conditions.

The widely adopted results enabled companies to produce better quality tallow, and stock feeding meals from waste meat, fat and bones.

This year, Mr Fernando's company, Flo-Dry Engineering, which since 1983 has continued to improve the technology, won an export commendation award.

Trade Minister Lockwood Smith praised its use of intellectual capital to design and build $20 million worth of waste processing systems here and in Australia, India and Chile.

Mr Fernando said there had been a huge spin-off for New Zealand from the 1970s research, he said.

"The original cost has been repaid more than a hundredfold. As well as the export earnings, the country now has some of the best waste processing plants in the world and is a supplier of key components and maintenance services, which we can do better than anyone overseas," he said.

Forty per cent of an animal was by-product, but it returned only 10 per cent of the value gained from the rest of the carcass.

"The potential is in the by-product," he said.

With returns for rendered by-products unchanged since 1974, the challenge was to make plants more energy efficient, and to develop new products in a competitive sector dominated by international giants like Alfa-Laval.

Among the novel products recovered using Flo-Dry technologies are meat extracts and bone gel for use as photographic or pharmaceutical gelatin.

In most cases the systems solve potentially severe pollution and waste disposal problems. Fat and protein is recovered from effluent to produce stock feed, and New Plymouth will be the first New Zealand city to convert its sewage sludge into a dry, low grade fertiliser with Flo-Dry systems.

Mr Fernando said the plants, usually worth between $2 million and $3 million, were vastly different from the stench-ridden factories of the past.

A bio-filter has been developed to eliminate odours.

"It's like dairy factory technology, all stainless steel pipes," he said.