Earth Hour and Agroindustrial Bio Product

Climate change is one threat to life on Earth is the most significant. One way to reduce the acceleration of global warming is to make each individual make lifestyle changes. To achieve this change, we as an organization must be able to show that the change is simple and easy.

Human dependence that in fact the electricity comes mostly from power plants and fossil fuel out of CO2 or greenhouse gases has caused a dramatic increase in the average temperature of Earth, causing the sea level rise, the long drought and storms, and massive changes to the environment that has become the source of our lives.

Solutions
"An activity aimed at building community involvement or invite a small area of action that can bring a big change."

What is Earth Hour

EARTH HOUR is one of WWF's campaign, the largest conservation organization in the world, a global initiative that invites individuals, business practitioners, government, and other public sectors around the world to participate turned out the lights (just) in 1 hour, on Saturday, 27 March 2010 at 20:30 to 21:30 (local time).

EARTH HOUR campaign began with a collaboration between WWF-Australia, Fairfax Media and Leo Burnett for the city of Sydney, Australia, with the goal of reducing greenhouse gases in the city as much as 5% in 2007. The success of this campaign is expected to be adopted by society, communities, businesses and other governments around the world so that all citizens of the world can help show that an individual action that is easy even if done in bulk will make our life on Earth for the better.

What influence Earth Hour

In 2008, 50 million people in 35 countries turned off the lights in action to support EARTH HOUR.

On March 28, 2009, hundreds of millions of people in more than 4000 cities and towns in 88 countries around the world turned off the lights to support EARTH HOUR. EARTH HOUR 2009 became the largest environmental movement in history.

Earth Hour and Agroindustry Bio-Product

Actually, the main idea of this campaign is to raise public awareneess of our environtmental condition. Earth Hour is also strategic momentum to :

1. Reminding the public that climate change also comes from power plants using fossil fuel
2. Promote energy efficiency in cities with populations and high electricity consumption.
3. Creating and sparked public awareness about energy-efficient lifestyle in other big cities in World, the crisis of electricity supply and distribution, and also potential sources of electricity in Big Cities to meet the needs of local communities, in a broader perspective can also stimulate changes in behavior and incentives for the economy. (www.earthhour.wwf.co.id)

In other side, the system of Agroindustry is always making something new to add the value of Agricultural Product. Many Agro Industries is trying to make bio-product to reduce the emmision of Gas CO2 and decrease the usage of fossil fuels.

In now days, there are many agro industrial bio product that can be uses to reduce a Global Warming process. This product are like bio-plastic that can be degradable by it self, bio-fuels (bioethanol, biodiesel, biogases, biobiokerosene) that claimed have complete combustion so it can decrease the CO gases and other bio products that are greener.

This mean by using bio-product we we have participated in the civilizing Agroindustry, and participated in environmental campaigns without having to turn off the lights. (even turned off the lights in the Earth Hour is much better)

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Rubber Industry Waste Water Treatment

Rubber industry in Lampung province, Indonesia. produce crumb rubber and rubber smoke sheet from latex as raw material. This process consumed a lot of water and of course will produce a lot of waste water (25-30 m3 per ton latex). The waste water contain high concentration of organic matters which indicated by high concentration of BOD and COD. The characteristics of rubber waste water are shown in Table 7. Considering to the characteristics and the amount of rubber waste water, waste water treatment process in rubber industry also use conventional biological treatment and followed by reuse of treated waste water as process water in the factory. As a case study we observed the waste water treatment plant in PT. Perkebunan Nusantara VII Unit Rubber Factory Kedaton, Lampung Indonesia. The wastewater treatment plant of PT. Perkebunan Nusantara VII Unit Rubber Factory Kedaton, Lampung Indonesia has total area about 6 Ha with 9 ponds and total volume capacity approximately 55,806 m3. The hydraulic retention time of rubber wastewater was designed about 66 days to reduce the concentration of waste water until reach national standard and reuse again the treated waste water as process water. Stage of process in waste water treatment plant of PT. Perkebunan Nusantara VII Unit Rubber Factory Kedaton was designed as follow: Rubber trap, anaerobic pond, facultative pond, aerobic pond, and recycle pond.

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Properties, Production and Uses of Carrageenan

Carrageenans are commercially important hydrophilic colloids (water-soluble gums) which occur as matrix material in numerous species of red seaweeds (Rhodophyta) wherein they serve a structural function analogous to that of cellulose in land plants. Chemically they are highly sulfated galactans. Due to their half-eater sulfate moieties they are strongly anionic polymers.

Carrageenan is a collective term for polysaccharides prepared by alkaline extraction (and modification) from red seaweed (Rhodophycae), mostly of genus Chondrus, Eucheuma, Gigartina and Iridaea. Different seaweeds produce different carrageenans.

Carrageenans are sulfated polymers made up of galactose units. Several fractions have been determined, but a common backbone can be defined. Carrageenan consists of a main chain of D-galactose residues linked alternately α - (1 → 3) and β - (1 → 4).

The differences between the fractions are due to the number and to the position of the sulfate groups and to the possible presence of a 3.6 anhydro-bridge on the galactose linked through the 1 - and 4 -positions.

Carrageenan consists of alternating 3-linked-b-D-galactopyranose

and 4-linked-a-D-galactopyranose units

Carrageenans are linear polymers of about 25,000 galactose derivatives with regular but imprecise structures, dependent on the source and extraction conditions. Idealized structures are given below and k-carrageenan, for example, has been found to contain a small proportion of the dimer associated with i-carrageenan.

Carrageenan extraction Procedure

Uses of Carrageenan

There are some general uses of carrageenan :

1. Gelling Agent (Hot water, milk)
2. dairy desserts (milk-gels, flans, custards) 
3. chocolate milks 
4. ices, ice creams and related products 
5. meat preserves 
6. petfoods 
7. air-fresheners 
8. enzyme 
9. in vitro meristem culture 

READ MORE - Properties, Production and Uses of Carrageenan

Sugarcane Waste Water Treatment

In sugarcane industry, many industries usually use a conventional biological treatment. As a case study and example we observed the waste water treatment plant in PT. Gunung Madu Pantations, Lampung Indonesia. The wastewater treatment plant of PT. Gunung Madu Pantations has total area about 8.0 Ha with 11 ponds and total volume capacity approximately 244,000 m3. The hydraulic retention time of sugarcane wastewater was designed about 60 days to reduce the concentration of waste water until reach national standard.

Stage of process in waste water treatment plant of PT. Gunung Madu Pantations was designed as follow: oil-solid separation, equalization, anaerobic digestion, facultative decomposition with added degrading bacteria, aerobic decomposition, and stabilization. Before discharge the waste water to river (Way Putak), the treated waste water should be through monitor pond with has fish as a bio-indicator. If the treated wastewater has concentration lower than effluent standard and has no problems with fish in monitor pond, the treated wastewater can discharge to the river.

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Waste Water Treatment Process in Palm Oil Industry

Waste water treatment process in palm oil industry usually use conventional biological treatment. Generally, we can separate to two type of treatment system in palm oil industry: 

1. biological treatment with land application,
2. biological treatment without land application.

In biological treatment with land application, the waste water or famous as palm oil mill effluent (POME) was treated until anaerobic digestion after that spread to the plantation as an irrigation water and liquid fertilizer. Now, biological treatment with land application is a common waste water treatment system in palm oil industry. The biological treatment without land application system is the old waste water treatment system in palm oil industry. In this system the target of waste water treatment process is to reach the effluent standard. After anaerobic digestion, the POME was treated in facultative pond, aerobic pond, and some time use sand bad filter. This system needs a lot of energy for aeration and using this system we loss a lot of organic materials.

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Sugarcane and How its Made

Other Agroindustry product that have an added value is Sugarcane. Sugarcane, is any of six to thirty-seven species (depending on taxonomic system) of tall perennial grasses of the genus Saccharum (family Poaceae, tribe Andropogoneae). Native to warm temperate to tropical regions of Asia, they have stout, jointed, fibrous stalks that are rich in sugar, and measure two to six meters (six to nineteen feet) tall. All sugar cane species interbreed, and the major commercial cultivars are complex hybrids. Brazil produces about one-third of the world's sugarcane.

The uses of sugarcane

Sugar cane is grown in over 110 countries with an estimated total production of 1,591 million metric tons in 2007, more than six times the output of sugar beet. In 2005, the world's largest producer of sugar cane was Brazil, followed by India. Sugar cane products include table sugar, Falernum, molasses, rum, cachaça (the national spirit of Brazil), and ethanol. The bagasse that remains after sugar cane crushing may be burned to provide heat and electricity. It may also, because of its high cellulose content, serve as raw material for paper, cardboard, and eating utensils that, because they are by-products, may be branded as "environmentally friendly."

Making the Sugarcane

threre are basic way to create or making a sugarcane. in this section, will be explained about how to make a sugarcane with the traditional processing.

1. Growing the Cane
Sugar cane is a sub-tropical and tropical crop that prefers lots of sun and lots of water - provided that its roots are not waterlogged. It typically takes about 12 months to reach maturity although the time varies widely around the world from as short as six months in Louisiana to 24 months in some places. Where it differs from many crops is that it re-grows from the roots so the plant lasts many cycles [or 'ratoons', a word derived from the Spanish to sprout] before it is worn out
2. Harvesting
Sugar cane is harvested by chopping down the stems but leaving the roots so that it re-grows in time for the next crop. Harvest times tend to be during the dry season and the length of the harvest ranges from as little as 2 ½ months up to 11 months. The cane is taken to the factory: often by truck or rail wagon but sometimes on a cart pulled by a bullock or a donkey!
3. Extraction
The first stage of processing is the extraction of the cane juice. In many factories the cane is crushed in a series of large roller mills: similar to a mangle [wringer] which was used to squeeze the water out of clean washing a century ago. The sweet juice comes gushing out and the cane fibre is carried away for use in the boilers. In other factories a diffuser is used as is described for beet sugar manufacture. Either way the juice is pretty dirty: the soil from the fields, some small fibres and the green extracts from the plant are all mixed in with the sugar.
4. Evaporation
The factory can clean up the juice quite easily with slaked lime (a relative of chalk) which settles out a lot of the dirt so that it can be sent back to the fields. Once this is done, the juice is thickened up into a syrup by boiling off the water using steam in a process called evaporation. Sometimes the syrup is cleaned up again but more often it just goes on to the crystal-making step without any more cleaning. The evaporation is undertaken in order to improve the energy efficiency of the factory.
5. Boiling
The syrup is placed into a very large pan for boiling, the last stage. In the pan even more water is boiled off until conditions are right for sugar crystals to grow. You may have done something like this at school but probably not with sugar because it is difficult to get the crystals to grow well. In the factory the workers usually have to throw in some sugar dust to initiate crystal formation. Once the crystals have grown the resulting mixture of crystals and mother liquor is spun in centrifuges to separate the two, rather like washing is spin dried. The crystals are then given a final dry with hot air before being stored ready for despatch.
6. Storage
The final raw sugar forms a sticky brown mountain in the store and looks rather like the soft brown sugar found in domestic kitchens. It could be used like that but usually it gets dirty in storage and has a distinctive taste which most people don't want. That is why it is refined when it gets to the country where it will be used. Additionally, because one cannot get all the sugar out of the juice, there is a sweet by-product made: molasses. This is usually turned into a cattle food or is sent to a distillery where alcohol is made.

So what happened to all that fibre from crushing the sugar cane? It is called "bagasse" in the industry. The factory needs electricity and steam to run, both of which are generated using this fibre. 

The bagasse is burnt in large furnaces where a lot of heat is given out which can be used in turn to boil water and make high pressure steam. The steam is then used to drive a turbine in order to make electricity and create low pressure steam for the sugar making process. This is the same process that makes most of our electricity but there are several important differences.

When a large power station produces electricity it burns a fossil fuel [once used, a fuel that cannot be replaced] which contaminates the atmosphere and the station has to dump a lot of low grade heat. All this contributes to global warming. In the cane sugar factory the bagasse fuel is renewable and the gases it produces, essentially CO2, are more than used up by the new cane growing. Add to that the factory use of low grade heat [a system called co-generation] and one can see that a well run cane sugar estate is environmentally friendly.

READ MORE - Sugarcane and How its Made