Turning animal waste into multimillion$ reuse industry

Heads, offal, even feathers used

FOR MORE than 100 years Brazil has engaged in protein extraction from by-products or waste meat of animals slaughtered during the regular course of butchering.

This process, known as rendering, results in the conversion of the offal, heads and in the case of chickens, turkey, geese and ducks, even the feathers into value-added material which has been used to fund and sustain a multi-million dollar industry there.

Last Wednesday Lucas Cypriano, who heads the technical department at Brazilian Renderers, a company that renders in excess of 12 billion kilos of waste from cattle, goat, pigs, fish, chicken and turkey waste each year, dismissed concerns about the safety of value-added products from this for use and consumption by animals and humans as misinformed as much as it is uninformed.

“Forget perception, go to the science,” he told The Gleaner. “There are several papers concerning the use of these by products. Several and all of them state that there is not a single problem, if done correctly.

So as long as you render properly with the proper rules, in the proper situation there is no risk. Rendering boils the raw material to 100°C for 40 minutes, then it rises to 125°C for the last 20 minutes. That should kill everything. The rendering system in Brazil is for more than 100 years and no one knows that we exist, why? Because we create no problems. If you create problem, then you are known everywhere (for the wrong reasons).”

Described as the most economical, as well as environmentally-friendly method of disposing of carcasses, rendering is a closed system for thermal treatment of animal tissues leading to stable, sterilised products such as animal fat and dried animal protein. It grinds the tissue and sterilises it by heat under pressure, in the process rendering all the pathogens inactive.

The oil is separated from the solid and used in the production if biofuel, soap, waxes, among other items, which the solid is used in a wide range of animal feeds.

One of the benefits of rendering is that it reduces the need for disposal of the animal waste in the traditional methods such as dumping, burning and burial, which are definitely not environmentally friendly and potentially could trigger animal and human health problems.

FILE The waste of cattle, chicken, ducks — even feathers go into producing oils, feeds, soaps etc.

CHRISTOPHER SERJU PHOTO Lucas Cypriano head of the technical department at Brazilian Renderers emphasises the science behind the process that makes the consumption by animals and use by humans of the by-products safe, during a recent presentation.