At 12:42 PM 7/28/00 +0100, Richard wrote:
>Here in the UK our processors are getting used to the idea that they have
>to pay to dispose of waste fish material, rather than have it sent back to
>sea. Often this is in relatively small quantities but on a daily
>basis. A project in the SW of England is seeking ways to use the waste,
>one project is looking at fish silage. In the past this has not taken off
>because the end product is too heavy to retain a commercial value if
>transported around. Does anyone know of either, a way in which small
>producers can use the waste, rather than having it sent to costly
>industrial waste disposal contractors or of any recent advances in fish
>silage perhaps on a small scale, for example, are there any farm scale
>silage systems that would allow the product to be manufactured where the
>end product could be fed to pigs direct.
Welcome to the club!
In North America, hog and cattle farmers have had the same problem with
animal waste. They dump it in the water supply (which has changed river
flora and fauna and helped to create the "Pfisteria" problem on the east
coast of the US), and they dump the semi-liquid waste as free fertilizer on
neighboring farms.
Using the waste as fertilizer on neighboring farms has lead to the
Walkerton, Ontario, E. coli O157 outbreak due to contamination of aquifers.
Paper companies and meat processors have dealt with the issue by building
water treatment ponds and doing further processing on waste (e.g., drying,
extraction, etc.). Byproducts from your operation could include fishmeal,
composted fertilizer, isolated proteins, etc. Those used for pets or humans
would have to be made from edible waste.
In the cheese industry in North America, whey waste is the problem. The
high biological oxygen demand and effect on river ecology created expensive
disposal. This has spawned a "whey protein concentrate" industry over the
last 20 years.
I suggest you consider the building of a cat food canning plant near the
fish processors. This would be an efficient solution to your problem and
should produce a product highly desirable to consumers in the UK where BSE
is a large issue in meat-based products.
================================================================
Robert A. LaBudde, PhD, PAS, Dpl. ACAFS e-mail: ral@lcfltd.com
Least Cost Formulations, Ltd. URL: http://lcfltd.com/
824 Timberlake Drive Tel: 757-467-0954
Virginia Beach, VA 23464-3239 Fax: 757-467-2947
"Vere scire est per causas scire"
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