China’s love of pork is a huge strain on the environment: its 700 000 million pigs produce 1.5 million tons of poo a year. But an Australian firm has a plan.
Why not turn the poo into power? Using a bioreactor called PooCareTM and other technology, the manure is converted into biofuel for cooking and heating while the rest goes to farms as fertiliser.
“The benefits are energy and fuel… as well as preventing further contamination of the environment,” said Ravi Naidu, the chief scientist at CRC Care. “It’s a green technology from that perspective.”
The process involves an underground bioreactor that is 30m long. Waste is fed through it slowly at a predetermined temperature.
This converts solid waste into a biogas that is pumped through tanks and delivered to the local community. The process takes a month, with the first biogenerator already running in central China.
China’s many pigs produce two-thirds of the meat consumed there annually, so the scale of the problem can’t be underestimated.
Only one-tenth of pig waste is used as manure. And the nutrients lost in the waste of one pig alone are worth A$50 (R400) a year. There is a vast disparity in rural and urban wages with farmers earning about $75 a month. The health risks are worse.
“Pig waste contains a high level of nitrate”, which can contaminate water, Naidu said.
The technology costs A$35 000 for each reactor. Mass production would bring costs down. – Reuters