V.RDP.3010 - Wastes to Profits

Summary

This project, led by Meat & Livestock Australia was funded under round three of the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry's Rural Research and Development for Profit Program. The project brings together key stakeholders from across Australia’s animal industries and technology, research and development providers to deliver advanced technologies to convert wastes from intensive animal production for example feedlots, food processing, and municipal water treatment into fertilisers, feeds, chemicals, and energy products for use in agriculture.

Objectives

On-farm, intensive feeding and processing sectors in Australian red meat, dairy and pork industries produce substantial quantities of organic waste with biogas energy potential that can meet the majority of estimated onsite energy demand within those sectors. ADAdvisor has been set up as a user-friendly techno-economic assessment tool that will likely continue to be a future enabler in support of adoption of biogas technology across Australian red meat, dairy and pork industries, and their associated supply chains.

ADAdvisor has also been set-up in a way to allow its ongoing expansion (including voluntary data sharing inputs by users, being incorporated into the background waste characteristics database), and refinement, so that it can continue to be a useful tool to facilitate future biogas projects.

Key findings

One of the key outcomes from the assessment of the various industry waste streams was the development of the ADAdvisor tool – an online tool that enables industry end-users to assess the economic feasibility of prospective anaerobic co-digestion projects that use livestock sector waste streams.

Anaerobic digestion (AD) is a strong platform for technology integration and value-chain innovation to generate modern waste-to-value opportunities that go far beyond traditional AD products such as biogas and digestate.

Intermediates can be captured and used as precursors in a range of commodity chemicals, anti-microbials, anti-fungals, novel fuels and bioplastics. A range of these products, such as production of nutritionally-enhanced animal feeds, organomineral fertilisers, chemicals and fuel, were explored. Technologies were developed at laboratory scale and transferred to pilot scale so that the processes could be assessed for economic feasibility and the products tested for safety and efficacy in livestock feeding trials. The feeding trials were focused on assessing the feed performance to build a business case for their use and provide initial data for regulatory approvals.

The outcomes from the development of technologies for production of fertilisers, chemicals, plastics and energy products will be measured through profitability increases achieved using new technologies, reduced input costs, and improved productivity.

Benefits to industry

A significant project benefit has been the opportunity to collaborate on common issues for Meat and Livestock Australia, Australian Meat Processor Corporation, Dairy Australia and Australian Pork Limited.

Red Meat 2030, which sets out the high-level strategic direction of the Australian red meat and livestock industry over the next decade lists under its commitment to carbon neutrality by 2030, to demonstrably reduce production, processing, and consumption waste. A strength of this project was the productive interactions with industry to address issues important to their business.

MLA action

A copy of the final report is to be made available on the MLA website. MLA will work with AMPC to plan the delivery of industry and stakeholder workshops during FY24.

Future research

There is an ongoing focus on wastewater treatment and solid organic waste management, partners have high interest in in-factory trials and pilots that can demonstrate the feasibility of novel technologies and accelerate adoption.

However, much of the project’s impacts on industry may not be realised for several years due to the nature of the innovations and likely rate of adoption within the industry.

The research team is actively working together to develop opportunities for the next phase of Wastes to Profits and are looking out for ways to continue the research momentum and collaboration beyond this project.