Company, SP sign agreement to turn waste into fertiliser

SOUTH Pacific (SP) Brewery Ltd signed an agreement with Impetus Niugini Ltd for the use of waste from the brewing process.
Impetus Niugini Ltd programme manager Christian Portal signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with SP corporate affairs manager John Nilkare in Port Moresby yesterday for the use of spent grain waste for the brewer’s Lae branch.
Spent grain is what is left over after the brewing process.
Impetus Niugini will turn the waste into fertiliser. “For many years we have been dumping our waste and that is not sustainable, it is not good for the environment,” Nilkare said.
“We have been looking at ways of partnering with different organisation to see if we can utilise some of this spent grain.”
Portal said the project’s landholding was two hectares in Lae, and it would be used for the preparation of compost and biochar.
Demonstration farming would be carried out at Erap, Morobe, in an existing cassava farm that is owned by SP.
Biochar is an active charcoal made into 2mm pellets, from the pyrolysis of biomass from coconut shells, fibre, wood cut waste and others.
“The project will require both skilled and unskilled labour for its establishment and maintenance operations,” Nilkare said.
“The number of skilled and permanent workers proposed will amount to 40 people.
“It is expected that the project will generate income of US$3.3 million (K11mil) by year five and be in profit by the middle of year two.
“There are various socio-economic activities currently active around Lae: Agriculture Cassava farms (SPBL and Rumion), Sorghum production (Mainland Holdings), livestock (Ramu cattle), and the SPBL Cassava flour production factory that involves out-growers in the Markham Valley.”
All these activities generate waste that is generally not recycled nor reused but dumped in designated areas. In Lae city itself there are several sources of easily collected usable bio-mass.
“The city’s management faces an immense problem with their waste (organic waste, green leaves and stems) which is estimated to be over 16,000 million tons a year, dumped directly on the land near factories or driven to a landfill site, Second Seventh Landfill (SSL) which is a 40-year-old municipal solid waste 15-hectare open dumpsite without a bottom liner located at the Second Seventh of West Taraka in Lae City.”