The Australian red meat processing industry is gaining global recognition for its work on sustainability, with an AMPC project recently achieving not one but two highly commended nods at the prestigious IChemE Global Awards for chemical engineering.
AMPC’s Water Recycling Pilot, worked on together with All Energy, was recognised in both the Team Collaboration category and the Water Management category.
AMPC Program Manager - Sustainability, Matt Deegan, says the commendations come as the project is nearing completion of initial on-site tests with several members, and is now gearing up for some first ever on-site class A water recycling trials.
“IChemE is widely regarded as the world's most prestigious chemical engineering awards program,” Matt says. “The dual recognition of this program speaks not only to the quality of the program itself, but also reflects the drive to ongoing improvement in resource efficiency across the whole Australian sector.”
Program offers broad benefits
The Water Recycling Pilot is part of a wide program of work which Matt says is focused on broadening processor benefits along the whole red meat supply chain. For example, there is also work underway on emissions management and reduction in processor heavy transport.
“We know that the red meat processing industry is reliant on heavy transport, but there is insufficient quality data to ascertain how much of Australia’s transport emissions are tied to the red meat industry.
“AMPC is conducting a heavy transport emissions baseline project, which aims to improve the measurement and management of fuel use in red meat processor heavy transport. This project is jointly funded by AMPC, iMOVE CRC, and Swinburne University.”
Another area of focus is around building the circular economy in the red meat industry. AMPC is conducting two projects that will accelerate both the potential for biomethane recovery and the circularity of biofertilisers, all from processor and agricultural waste streams.
“It’s exciting to see how sustainability program can deliver positive outcomes for members plus generate co-benefits across the supply chain and regional communities,” Matt says.