Liquor Factory Waste To Be Used As Fertilizer

[george]

Liquor factory waste products to be used as fertilizer

BANGKOK: -- Liquor lovers might soon be able to drink in the knowledge that they are helping the environment if plans by the Department of Land Development to use waste products from whisky factories to produce organic fertilizer are given the green light.

According to Mr. At Somrang, the department’s director-general, the depart ment has now signed a research and development deal with the Excise Depart ment’s Liquor Distillery Organization on a programme which aims to use waste products from the organization’s factories to produce high quality compost and organic fertilizer.

The fertilizer will be tested in greenhouses on sweetcorn and other vegetables, before the technology is disseminated to farmers across the country.

Whisky factories operated by the Liquor Distillery Organization currently churn out over 500,000 litres of waste products from the distillation process each day. Although waste products from distillation have been used to produce cheap fertilizer in the past, the composting process used to date has been a lengthy and complex one, and most of the waste products are simply buried in landfill sites.

--TNA 2004-09-13