Helping Our Environment
Uzelac Industries is in many respects a recycling company. We improve the environment by helping our customers transform products that might have otherwise been treated as waste into usable products. In each of the various industries we serve our dryers are a key component in waste reduction.
Rendering:
Our dryers are used in the rendering industry by companies such as Tyson, Cargill, and JBS to dry blood and bonemeal for feed, biofuels, and other useable products.
- Rendering helps protect the environment with lower greenhouse gas emissions than other disposal methods, decreased energy and water consumption, and more efficient processing technologies.
- Rendering reclaims billions of gallons of water that would otherwise be wasted or contaminated. The process improves water quality, with much of the water naturally releasing back into the environment through evaporation from our dryers.
- Sustainable products: Renderers reclaim and recycle items such as used cooking oil and rendered protein ingredients for animal feed, biodiesel, pet food and many other products, most of which require a drying stage that Uzelac dryers are employed.
The North American Renderers Association estimates that “If all renderable products were sent to the landfill, all available space would be used in 4 years.”
Biogas:
Our dryers are used in the renewable biogas industry to dry digestate, the remnant material remaining after a manure or other biomass is digested to produce RNG. This dried material is typically used for a fertilizer or recycled as bedding for dairy cows. The digestion and production of RNG assists in the following environmental benefits:
- Recycling manure and kills odors and pathogens while producing renewable energy and soil products.Moving manure from open lagoons to an airtight biogas system reduces GHG emissions.
- Reduces carbon emissions in transportation by at least half compared to fossil fuels.
- Recycling manure creates an opportunity to separate nutrients and keep them out of waterways.
- The use of digestate dried by our dryers can replace costly synthetic fertilizers and can increase plant growth by 10-30 percent compared to synthetic fertilizers.
Biochar:
Our dryers are used by companies such as EarthCare LLC and EcoRemedy to dry biomass prior to their gasification process which creates biochar. Given the nature of their process our dryers in these applications use waste heat from the gasification process, and therefore don’t burn any gas in the drying process.
Biochar and clean energy (heat and power) are produced by pyrolysis and gasification (super-heating biomass in closed system-ovens). This alternative energy reduces greenhouse gases by offsetting fossil fuel use, and since all emissions are captured, doesn't emit more.
When creating biochar, 50% of the original carbon in the biomass is captured and stored in the char. Biochar-amended soils also provide a 50-80% reduction in nitrous oxide emissions. Nitrous Oxide released from certain fertilizers is a more potent greenhouse gas with 310 times more impact than an equal amount of CO2.
Biochar is Carbon Negative— Biochar reverses the fossil fuel deposition of CO2 in the atmosphere by removing carbon from the active cycle and sequestering it in the inactive carbon cycle. This process not only enhances soil fertility, but it displaces much of the need for fossil fuel-based fertilizers, thereby making the biochar process carbon negative.
Biosolids:
Rotary drying has been a staple in municipal wastewater treatment plants for many years. We have worked in a variety of treatment plants drying solids to either produce a fertilizer product or reduce landfill dumping. Most recently with EcoRemedy in Edmonds, WA. Their system, utilizing a Uzelac dryer, does a 95% product reduction, destroys the harmful PFAS chemicals, and reduces fossil fuel usage by more than 99% compared to incineration.
Carbon capture and other Green Initiatives:
In addition to the previously mentioned markets, we also have systems proposed for other green initiatives such as carbon sequestration, and the use of black soldier flies to process food waste (we have non-disclosure agreements for these opportunities). In all of these drying is paramount to successful product processing.