| | Achieving both environmental and economic goals in agricultural processing sometimes feels like a delicate balancing act. The manpower and financial resources needed to adopt environmentally friendly technologies can be hard to come by, specially for a small company. And yet those technologies can often result in financial benefits for the company over the long term. Fortunately, the AESAProcessing Based Program can help companies to accomplish that balance.
Since 1997, the program has been providing financial and technical assistance to Alberta processors for developing and adopting environmentally friendly systems. These systems often require new adaptations that are very specific to the particular type of processing involved. So the program helps reduce the risk to the company by cost-sharing the project. The maximum funding available per project is $20,000.
Program manager Dr. Jimmy Yao says, “The program focuses on three areas: reducing inputs, like power, water and ingredients; reducing, recovering and reusing waste materials; and environmental management such as certification of reaching specific environmental standards.”
Yao points to some of the program’s recent highlights. One project involved technology to recover methane, a greenhouse gas, from the wastewater of a meat packing plant. The wastewater contains organic wastes from the slaughtering process. Methane is released as the organic materials are broken down during treatment in a lagoon. Yao says, “The lagoon used to be open to the atmosphere, releasing methane into the air. With its new methane recovery technology, the company captures the methane and uses it to power its boilers. So the company is reducing greenhouse gas emissions, reducing odour emissions, and saving a substantial amount every month in its energy costs.”
Another highlight is a project at a company that specializes in encapsulating herbs, minerals and other supplements in soft gel. The encapsulating process involves punching individual capsules from a sheet of gelatin. About 20% of the gelatin the company purchased used to become waste. The program provided assistance so the company could implement a process to recover and sell some of this waste gelatin. Yao says, “So the project turned waste into money for the company and reduced the amount of waste going to the landfill.”
Dr. Terry Rachuk of the National Research Council’s Industrial Research Assistance Program emphasizes that link between economic and environmental considerations. “Any processing system results in some waste materials, and there is a cost associated with handling that waste. AESA funding can help a company to find options for reducing wastes and minimizing environmental impacts of wastes – and perhaps also providing a source of income for the company.”
Rachuk represents the Processing Based Committee on AESA Council. This committee, which includes processors and representatives from government agencies, has the challenging task of reviewing applications to the program. In addition, the committee sometimes initiates studies aimed at benefiting the processing sector as a whole. For example, it is currently developing plans for a study to identify cost effective methods for collecting and recycling waste materials from small processing companies, restaurants and grocery stores.
The AESA Processing Based Program is available to Canadian companies registered to conduct business in Alberta, or to recognized government or academic research agencies in Alberta. For more information on the program, visit www.aesa.ca. |
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