Waste Reduction Improve the Environment and Reduce Costs

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Waste ReductionImprove the Environment and
Reduce Costs

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Climate Change Why worry?

• Climate relatively stable for the last 10,000
  years
• The average sea level around the UK is now about
  10cm higher than it was in 1900.

Source Cox et al. 2000
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Climate Change Thermohaline Circulation (THC)

• Heat from the equator is dispersed
• Stream turned off 13,000 years ago

Recent research indicates a 30 reduction in the
current
Source Hadley Centre
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Climate Change Thermohaline Circulation
Source
Source Hadley Centre
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Climate Change Why worry?

• 1.5 C could cause
• Greenland ice sheet 3 Million Km3
• 7m rise in sea levels
• 10,000 billions of metric tons of methane
  hydrates to destabilise

Source Hadley Centre
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Government action- Environmental impact

• Landfill waste reduction
• Product life cycle
• Emissions reduction
• Energy use reduction

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Economic climate change

• Competition for energy
• Rising fuel prices
• Increased pressure to comply with legislation
• Increased need to cut overheads and production
  costs

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Reduce Waste

• Cost for manufacturers
• For every tonne of household waste produced,
  commercial, industrial and construction
  businesses produce another six tonnes
• 5 million tonnes of hazardous waste in England
  and Wales every year
• Manufacturers could save around 1 of turnover
  through simple, yet effective, techniques to
  minimise waste
• Source Defra

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Increase Energy Efficiency

• SMEs are wasting as much as 30 of their energy,
  equal to 1.1 billion or an average of 7,000 per
  business

• Motors are the biggest energy wasters
• Use a variable speed drive
• A 50 reduction in speed 87.5 reduction in
  energy consumption
• This could mean payback time of less than one year

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Increase Energy Efficiency

• Lighting
• Energy saving bulbs
• Turn unused lights off
• Heating
• Air conditioning can double your energy bills
• Buy energy efficient equipment and maintain it
• Compressors can often be wasting 30 in every
  100
• Reduce use of materials, packaging
• Reduce transport costs by sourcing locally

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Food Miles

• a term which refers to the distance food travels
  from the time of its production until it reaches
  the consumer or end-user. It is one dimension
  used in assessing the environmental impact of
  food.
• is part of a broader issue of sustainability
  which deals with a large range of issues,
  including local food
• the direct environmental, social and economic
  costs of food transport are over 9 billion each
  year

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How Food Travels

• Recent findings indicate that it is not only how
  far the food has traveled but how it has traveled
  that is important to consider.
• The positive environmental effects of specialist
  organic farming may be offset by increased
  transportation, unless it is produced by local
  farms.
• But even then the logistics and effects on other
  local traffic may play a big role.
• Also, many trips by personal cars to external
  shopping centres would have a negative
  environmental impact compared to a few truck
  loads to neighborhood stores that can be easily
  accessed by walking or cycling.
• A locavore endeavors to eat food from within a
  foodshed having a radius of 100 miles.

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Criticism of food miles

• A comparison total energy used in food
  production in Europe and New Zealand, taking into
  account energy used to ship the food to Europe
  for consumers.
• New Zealand agriculture tends to apply less
  fertilisers (which require large amounts of
  energy to produce and cause significant CO2
  emissions)
• and animals are able to graze year round outside
  eating grass instead of large quantities of
  brought-in feed such as concentrates.
• Dairy is twice as efficient,
• Sheepmeat four times as efficient
• Apples NZ is more energy efficient

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Reduce transport costs by sourcing locally

• Food Miles
• Companies with under 100 tons of fruit per year
  have an overall energy turnover of 1.1 to 2.5
  kWh/litre while companies with more than 2,000
  tons per year have less than 0.5 kWh/l.
• Just in terms of transport and distribution,
  small fruit companies need 0.5-0.8 kWh/l while
  even though they are covering large distances,
  the large companies use only 0.1-0.3 kWh/l.

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Comparative shipping Cost
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Unit Operations
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Equipment
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Continuous operations

• UHT

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Concentration of Liquids
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Refrigeration

• Reveres Cycle Heating

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Fermentation of Waste
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Case Study 1 - Advance Enterprises

• Resins
• Medium high density fibre board, plywood,
  ceramic tiles
• Formaldehyde
• Used in 85 of MDF production
• EU market 2 million tonnes
• Carcinogen
• Petroleum based
• Cost subject to variation
• Bad for environment
• Alternative to formaldehyde resin
• Styrene-acrylate co-polymer water based emulsions

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Case Study 1 - Advance Enterprises

• Development of resin from sustainable source
• Opened up market in developing countries with
  indigenous raw material - Rapeseed oil
• Reduced waste to landfill from food industry
• Product with uses in
• Composite materials
• Fuel utilising short term carbon cycle from
  sustainable materials

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Case Study 2 Surgicraft

• Manufacturers of artificial ligaments
• Polyester or carbon fibres
• Gelatine coating

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Case Study 2 Surgicraft

• Coatings problem
• Gelatine
• Linked with BSE CJD

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Case Study 2 Surgicraft

• Needed to find solution
• Gelatine free
• Right properties
• Expertise in coatings and chemical detection of
  substances
• Solution Alginate

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Case Study 2 Surgicraft

• New coating safe and biocompatible
• Eliminated need for process step
• Saved energy
• Saved time
• Reduced cost
• Safeguarded market of 190K per year
• Safeguarded jobs
• Safeguarded potential to sell the product in USA