| Reducing waste in the desiccated coconut industry | Philippines | 1993 | Full scale |
MANUFACTURE OF FOOD PRODUCTS AND BEVERAGES # 35
Background:
Peter Paul Philippines Corporation is one of the largest firms producing desiccated coconut (DCN). It has a 13-hectare facility located at Barrio Pahinga, Candelaria, Quezon. It has a rated capacity of 22 000 tons of DCN per year, mainly for export, and it employs more than 1700 people. The Peter Paul Corporation entered into a joint venture with Taiwan's Chia Meei company to export concentrated and frozen coconut water for final processing in Taiwan.
Before Peter Paul Philippines Corporation entered into this joint venture with Chia Meei company, it was generating 80,000 liters a day of wasted coconut water. The large volume of highly organic wastewater generated is a major pollution problem in any desiccated coconut (DCN) processing plant. The by-products of DCN processing at Peter Paul before implementing coconut water recovery were crude coconut oil and copra meal.
As part of the Industrial Environmental Management Project (IEMP), a pollution management appraisal (PMA) was conducted at Peter Paul Philippines Corporation. A PMA aims to identify opportunities for reducing pollution using a waste management hierarchy in which waste minimization is the dominant component. One of the PMA recommendations was segregation, recovery and recycling of coconut water. This recommendation was implemented when Peter Paul entered into a joint venture with the Chia Meei company, which established a plant next to Peter Paul.
Cleaner Production Principle:
Recovery, reuse and recycle
Cleaner Production Application:
Collected coconut water is channeled to the Chia Meei plant for concentrating, freezing and final processing as a commercial drink. Peter Paul improved its handling of shelled and pared coconuts and installed a breaker to facilitate collection of coconut water. The Chia Meei plant which started operations in November 1993 requires 40 000 liters a day of coconut water from Peter Paul. After processing, the coconut water is shipped to Taiwan where it is produced as a commercial juice.
Coconut processing into a commercial juice drink involves pasteurization and centrifugation to produce a clear, non-oily solution for packing in sterile containers.
Environmental and Economic Benefits:
The estimated biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) level of wastewater from the Peter Paul facility was reduced by about 50 percent. The annual avoided treatment cost is approximately $3 700, assuming a 10 per cent reduction in the $37 000 annual operating cost of the wastewater treatment plant.
Peter Paul and Chia Meei company now profit from raw material once considered as waste. Since workers are now paid per whole pared coconut, they pare the coconut more carefully, resulting in a better controlled paring thickness, less coconut wastage and increased DCN production. An increase of 13.6 kg of DCN per ton of coconut processed resulted in an estimated annual savings of $370,000, when DCN production was 10,000 tons per year.
| Savings | US$/year |
| treatment costs | 3 700 |
| increased output | 370 000 |
The Chia Meei company was able to begin a new business processing 40,000 liters a day of coconut water into a commercial drink.
Constraints:
None reported.
Contacts:
Review Status:
This case study was originally published in the UNEP IE document "Cleaner Production in the ASIA and Pacific Economic Corporation (APEC) Region. In the process of preparing the document the case study underwent a technical review. Subsequently, in September 1998, the case study underwent a formal technical review by Dr. Prasad Modak, Environmental Management Centre, Mumbai, India.