Birth of Redoxmaster and its future
Redoxmaster was invented to solve the problems of the conventional waste treatment methods such as incineration, bio-degradation and landfill.
In order to treat waste, incineration which is a common garbage treatment method, uses a large amount of fossil fuel to burn food waste which contains a lot of water, emitting considerable CO2. Landfill method, another conventional waste disposal method, has great risk to contaminate water in the rivers and ground water system because of the polluted water from the food waste buried in the grounds. Furthermore, the buried food waste tends to emit methane gas which has 20 to 70 times as much greenhouse effect as CO2. It is supposed that biodegrading treatment system is eco-friendly, but to control the conditions such as temperature and humidity where bacteria can work effectively to degrade food waste is largely troublesome. Furthermore, when bacteria die out, decomposition does not progress, and consequently bad odor is produced. Because of these difficulties of managing the favorable environment for bacteria, biological method has not become widespread, although biological method is said to be eco-friendly.
In order to solve these problems of conventional waste treatment ways, our system is an ultra-low energy apparatus which can degrade and dry organic and inorganic substances very rapidly. Redoxmaster is a food waste degrading and recycling machine which is equipped with our new system. Redoxmaster can treat waste quickly, solving the difficulties of conventional waste degrading systems such as emission of a large amount of greenhouse gas and polluted water, and difficulties of management of bacteria.
World’s trend of food waste treatment
How to treat food waste efficiently is urgent in the EU, the environmentally advanced region in some areas in the EU, landfill has been already banned by regulations. The basic idea of their policies is to reduce the amount of waste, and the residue of the treated waste should be reused, recycled and recovered to minimize the waste of resources. It is highly recommended that those waste should be recycled into useful energy such as electricity, minimizing landfilling and incineration which produce no energy.
In addition to that, necessity to treat the waste on-site has increased, in order to reduce the amount of CO2 produced by transportation of waste to the remote waste treatment facilities. Recently the regulations about food waste disposal has also been tightened in Japan year by year. The Food Recycling law was revised in July 2017, and the target rates of recycling to be achieved by 2019, according to industries were raised as the table below.
Target of recycling rate imposed by the Food Recycling Law
|
2019 target |
Previous target |
2013 result |
| Food manufacturer |
95% |
85% |
95% |
| Food wholesale |
70% |
70% |
57% |
| Food retail |
55% |
45% |
41% |
| Food service |
50% |
40% |
23% |
The number of types of food-related businesses which are obliged to comply with the targets has increased from 26 in 2016 to 31 in 2017.
To adopt the best practice in the EU and to introduce an eco-friendly waste treatment system does not only contribute to increasing the profits of businesses by reducing the costs of waste disposal, but it is very important and beneficial for increasing the social and market values of the businesses.
Recently, the key concept, ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) * that especially listed companies should place importance on attracts investors’ attention. The word refers to the three central factors in measuring the sustainability and ethical impact of an investment in a company or business. The concept evolved from SRI (Socially responsible investment), meaning that the three factors are crucial for businesses to grow sustainably in the long term. This idea has attracted attention of the European and American investors from the 2010s. Japanese institutional investors have begun to regard the concept important to make a decision of investment these days. In Japan, more and more investors declare clearly that they do not invest money on businesses which do not achieve certain standards of ESG.
Under these circumstances, business of Redoxmasters in Europe where environmental regulations are stricter has preceded that in Japan, and the product has aroused public interests in the area.
Change waste to valuables
The residue of food waste which is treated by Redoxmaster can be recycled to fertilizers and livestock feed with dramatically less energy consumption, compared to conventional methods. The quality of the residue can be adjusted . (These depend on types of the waste, conditions and how they are separated.) We have already proven that it takes much shorter time to turn the residue by Redoxmaster into fertilizers and livestock feed, compared to the residue by other biological waste disposal system. The residue treated by Redoxmaster does not need long ripening period. As a result, it can shorten the time to produce livestock feed and fertilizers, leading to reduction of costs and time. Redoxmaster can make it possible to close the food “loop” by turning food waste into livestock feed and fertilizers to ensure vital nutrients can be returned to the field to grow new crops and stock farm products.
Organic matters in food waste (protein, lipid and carbohydrate and so on) are degraded by Redoxmaster into H2O and CO2 to be emitted to the air. The residue which has not been completely degraded into H2O and CO2 has as much or more energy as firewood and brown coal. The residue can be used as recycled fuels. In Northern European countries where people’s eco-awareness is high, a number of so-called “Waste to Energy” power stations which generate electricity by using waste have been already operating. Those countries even import waste from neighbor countries because of the shortage of waste to produce electricity. This situation has led to fights to acquire garbage for electricity among Northern European countries.
Redoxmaster is not a mere waste disposal machine to decompose organic waste, but a versatile waste recycling system which can turn waste into valuables such as livestock feed, fertilizer and fuel, according to the conditions and types of waste. Glencal technology continues research and development of this cutting-edge technology for a wider range of applications.
