Case study of waste minimization for ethanol manufacturing industry

Abstract

Waste minimization is one of the practices of waste management. This study was aimed to determine minimization options for the wastes generated from ethanol manufacturing industry. There are three types of wastes generated, which are CO2 as gaseous waste, molasses spent wash as wastewater and packaging wastes as solid wastes. CO2 from fermentation can be minimized with selling it to food and beverage industry for utilization as cooling agent and to produce carbonated beverages. Molasses spent wash from distillation can be minimized through evaporation and sedimentation and used as liquid and solid fertilizer. Packaging wastes from raw materials and products can be collected and sold to suppliers for recycle and reuse in order to minimize the wastes from disposed to the landfill site. With proper management of the wastes, impacts on environment, human health and industrial benefits can be improved, such as greenhouse effect from CO2, water bodies’ pollution due to high COD and BOD of molasses spent wash and landfill site pollution due to packaging wastes. In addition, proper management of the wastes are benefited to the industry as it can reduce treatment cost and reliance on landfill site for disposal by recycle the waste into another product for reuse.