Environmental Leader

An initiative in the Netherlands called Biopark Terneuzen, promotes sustainable development through the project’s SmartLink concept, with which industries use each other’s byproducts as feedstock, according to Biopark.

Cargill, for example, is using Smart Link to minimize its environmental impact and, through a direct pipeline connection with nearby Nedalco, has eliminated its road transport costs, the company says.

Cargill supplies several hundred metric tons annually of ‘B’ quality starch — a by-product of its production process — to Nedalco for the production of potable alcohol. It also supplies Nedalco with around 10,000 metric tons of steam and a few hundred cubic meters of purified water each year for its processing needs, according to Biopark.

Additionally, the water from Nedalco is fed back to Cargill’s water recycling plant for purification and re-use.

According to Francesco Faglia, the general manager of Cargill’s Sas van Gent, transporting his product by truck costs between $0.25 and $0.50 per ton per mile, so with hundreds of thousands of tons of by-product, the environmental and economic benefits are considerable, he says.

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