Midfield Meats EMS

One of Australia’s largest red meat producing companies, 100% Locally & Family owned

Split into five divisions: - Midfield Meat International (Midfield Meat Processing Site) - Midfield Co-Products (Midfield Rendering Site) - Midfield Transport - Midfield Pastoral (The Union, Ballengeich & Lowlands) - Midfield Wholesalers (The Meat Barn & Gateway Butchers)

Full production capacity of 1.6 million head of stock per annum, 6000 head smallstock & 800 head cattle per day

Supplying both the domestic and export markets, full Halal certification allows for direct market access into the Middle East

Permanent employment of 600 staff on a year round basis

Job Title: Group Environment & Sustainability Manager

Time with Midfield: Close to two years 4 Months Production 8 Months Wastewater Treatment 10 Months Environment

Education: Bachelor of Environmental Science (Marine and Freshwater) Deakin University, Warrnambool 2004-2007

“ The management of natural resources, utilities and waste/by-products to ensure sustainable business practices & cost savings, while managing a business’s environmental impact”

Industrial Environmental Management is not about being a ‘greenie’, but about creation and implementation of plans to bring about cost savings by way of lessened environmental impact.

Odour Noise Solid Waste Recycling

The Current BIG ISSUES …….

Water Consumption Liquid Waste Discharge (Wastewater) Energy Consumption & Associated Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Environment is the central point around which a business operates

Without effective Environmental Management a business will not be able to compete within today's world and is more likely to collapse

The Midfield EMS:

Environmental Management Review (EMR) undertaken by OTEK in January 2005

The EMR recommended that Midfield create an EMS, this would allow The Midfield Group to “ make continual environmental improvements, comply with regulations, set up environmental objectives & targets, document the processes, and communicate the findings”

Following the EMR, the Midfield EMS was developed in late 2005

Structured around ISO 14001 and Based on the Plan-Do-Check-Act methodology

Formalizes processes for environmental information control and record management

The Midfield EMS cont,

Purpose:

Provides alignment of current environmental management policies & procedures

Implements formal guidelines, processes and directions for continual environmental improvement

Scope:

Covers the Midfield Meat International processing site & Midfield Co-Products rendering site. Soon to be updated to cover the full scope of The Midfield Group.

Applies to all employees, contractors and vistors under the control of Midfield Meat International & Midfield Co-Products.

The Midfield EMS cont,

What it contains:

– Environmental Policy Statement

– Site information: Maps, Photos, Land Titles etc

– Production flow processes

– Legislative requirements

– Wannon Water Tradewaste agreement

– EPA License

– Procedure & Policy documents

– Yearly utilities & natural resource records

– Yearly waste records

– Yearly production data

– State and Federal environmental programs

1 – 1.5 million litres of potable supply water per day

1.5 – 2 million litres of wastewater discharged to trade waste per day

16 million KWH Electricity, enough to power 1800 houses

200 000+ GJ Natural Gas, enough for 8500 houses

Spray irrigation of the Midfield Co-Products wastewater

5500 Tonnes of Paunch material per annum

Odour from stockyards and rendering processes

Noise issues associated with 24hr operations

Onsite solid waste

For a large company such as Midfield the annual bills for natural resource and utilities usage, at the mentioned quantities, will be in the order of:

$2M for Electricity

$1M for Natural Gas

$800 000 for Potable Water

$600 000 for Wastewater discharge

Hence why I referred earlier to these as being the big issues!

As an Environmental Manager in Industry this is the procedure I follow when assessing current or future environmental impacts:

3.Is the impact likely to be significant environmentally, possibly resulting in either prosecution or extreme environmental degradation? If Yes act immediately to rectify no matter what the cost. If No proceed to next question.

5.Is the impact having a negative effect on the bottom line profit of the company? If Yes proceed to next question. If No review impact periodically to assess opportunities for future improvement.

7.What are the opportunities for elimination or reduction of the impact? Assess cause of impact followed by opportunities to reduce cause by culture or process change. Identify technologies to help reduce impact if no changes can be made to culture or process.

9.Cost-Benefit: Do the associated savings of impact reduction outweigh the costs of implementing the reduction measures, and how long is the payback period? If Yes implementation of the measures is likely to proceed*. If No the impact is to be assessed periodically for future improvement opportunities

* Unfortunately not all reduction measures will proceed, accountants like to see a payback period of usually less than 3years before they will allocate funds.

“Where there are threats of serious or irreversible environmental damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing measures to prevent environmental degradation”

Question 1. of ‘The Checklist’ requires the precautionary principle to be employed.

The single most difficult part of using the precautionary principle in industrial environmental management is communicating the reasoning behind having to stop an process due to environmental impact, when that reason is not related to cost, and has limited backing evidence.

This requires an understanding of environmental management throughout the whole of the company and more importantly, trust.

Appendix 04 of the Midfield EMS houses the ‘Aspects & Impacts Register’.

This identifies and assesses all environmental impacts relating the company.

The aspects and impacts are measured using a simply calculation matrix; where two factors are rated;•The severity (or consequence) of the impact occuring•The likelihood of the impact happening

This allows for an impact significance score for each environmental aspect; where the impact significance is the product of the two figures.

Risk Assessment & Management cont,

Risk Assessment Scoring:

Severity or consequence of the impact occuring (1-5)Extremely Low……1Low………………..2Moderate………….3High ……………….4

Likelihood of the impact happening (1-8)Very rarely………..1Rarely…………….2Infrequently………4Regularly…………6Daily………………8

Severity

Extremely low Low Moderate High Severe

1 2 3 4 5

Very rarely 1 1 2 3 4 5

Rarely 2 2 4 6 8 10

3 3 6 9 12 15

Infrequently 4 4 8 12 16 20

5 5 10 15 20 25

Likelihood Regually 6 6 12 18 24 30

7 7 14 21 28 35

Daily 8 8 16 24 32 40

Severity Rating 0 - 3 4 - 6 7 - 13 14 - 24 24 - 40

Risk Assessment & Management cont,

Impact Significance Register:

Midfield Meat International Pty LtdAppendix 04 - Aspects, impacts, objectives, risk register

Activity Aspect ImpactConsequ

enceLikelihoo

dSignifica

nce Objective / remedial actionIssues that need to be

addressesRoles

/Authority

246 Plant - General Abattoir Operations                

Stock and yard washing

Water consumption

Overuse of potable water 2 5 10

Reduce water use/use grey water Water Balance  

 Wastewater generation

Increasing waste loads 2 3 6

Pre-treat drainage water/create on-site ponds  

Stock yard manager

Sterilising equipment

Water consumption

Excess use of potable water 2 2 4

Investigate recycling options with Distech    

 Wastewater generation

Increased waste water volume 2 6 12

Look for possible water saving techniques    

Risk Assessment & Management cont,

Section of Appendix 04 – Aspects, impacts, objectives, risk register

Less than 10% of all solid waste onsite goes to landfill

Only torn animal skins and comingled waste to landfill

Every other waste product has a $ value

– Meat By-Products rendered to Meat & Bone Meal, and Tallow

– Blood is separated and dried into Blood Meal

– Torn skins go through a wool recovery process before landfill

– Intact skins sold off for leather goods

– Paunch contents and yard scrapings composted for use as fertilizer

– General rubbish sorted at onsite recycling plant into different fractions

Large user of water, 1 - 1.5 million litres of potable supply per day

Large percentage goes to boilers for sterilization and hot water demands

Water reuse options are currently being identified onsite, clean water streams are

being reused before discharge.

The biggest advancement for Midfield is the completion of the Geothermal Bore,

which comes on line in about six months time.

The bore will give Midfield a sustainable water supply separate from the Wannon

Water supply.

Water from the bore is at 43°C and will replace the potable supply (20°C) to the

boilers.

Gas savings in boiler to be around 50%

Water supplied from bore after treatment will be at a lesser cost than potable

supply

Midfield Co-Products:

Spray irrigation has been recognized as being non-sustainable

High level of nutrient discharge onto surrounding land

World first project using Vacuum Distillation to combine water reduction measures with wastewater treatment.

Wastewater is post a lagoon system. Chemical flocculation assists in ‘sticking’ the solid particles together.

Solids are screened using a Baleen Filter which replicates the baleen of a whale’s mouth

Vacuum distillation boils water at 70°C under vacuum to separate concentrate from distilled water

Distilled water to be used in cooling towers to displace potable water

Waste concentrate to be investigated for use as liquid fertilizer

07/08 Financial Year

Midfield Meat International 23 500 tCO2e (Carbon Dioxide Equivalent) Midfield Co-Products 13 000 tCO2e

Greenhouse Gases are made up of various compounds, as we are unable to accurately quantify these compounds we express all GHG’s as tCO2e, Carbon Dioxide Equivalent.

Black Balloons

Every Victorian household produces 12 tonnes GHG per year = 240 000 Black Balloons.

The two Midfield processing sites combined produced around 36 500 tonnes GHG last financial year = 73 000 000 Black Balloons or 304 households.

GHG cont,

What is The Midfield Group doing to reduce this number?

Electricity & Natural Gas usage is constantly monitored through a computer system which allows only the bare minimum needed to be used.

Just like a house we are replacing factory lighting with energy efficient alternatives.

Geothermal Bore water to replace previously heated town supply will reduce gas consumption in boilers by half.

Alternative technologies are continually being assessed for more energy efficient options.

The big one,

Electricity Co-Generation

Electricity produced from Natural Gas driven turbines onsite

Investigation started three years ago

In Victoria Natural Gas produces six times less the amount of GHG per GJ of energy than Electricity. This is due to the fact that Victoria’s power stations are powered by brown coal.

Would give us the ability to have control over our electricity supply and eliminate problems such as powercuts.

Added bonus of water heating while cooling turbines.

Likely to be implemented within the next 18 months.

All SITES who emit more than 25 000 tCO2e in a financial year will be involved

Currently in Australia this is 1000 sites.

The Midfield Meat International site emitted 23 500 tCO2e last financial year, at full production we would trip the threshold.

The issue:

If the carbon price is set at $30 tCO2e, we would have to buy $750 000 worth of credits to offset our emmisions.

We will also be faced with higher utilities costs. To offset these costs will would have take a profit cut or increase our prices. Which of these two do you thik is more likely?

Biodiesel production from animal fats - tallow

Investigation started around four years ago

Tallow is currently used in the oleic industry for soaps and makeup

Does not have the same arguments as ethanol based fuels or seed oils as tallow is a by-product of meat production

Work with Flinders University to solve issues of filter blocking in cold temps

Midfield could produce 150 000 L of pure B100 biodiesel per month

A standard blend of B20, or 20% Biodiesel 80% Mineral Diesel would mean production of 700 000 L of blend per month

Construction of plant likely to start by the end of the year