Environment
Environmental protection is another aspect to which the company pays particular attention.
In practical terms, we have an environmental unit that ensures we protect the environment and preserve natural resources. Its brief is to:
- Limit waste production;
- Ensure selective waste collection;
- Recycle by-products;
- Improve the quality of wastewater;
- Ensure the rational use of energy and water;
- Continue to enhance our biogas production;
- Reduce emissions to the atmosphere
There is a very large and efficient treatment plant for industrial water on each site. The wastewater treatment process includes several phases: a physical separation phase (screening and sedimentation), followed by anaerobic purification producing methane gas by biomethanisation.
At this stage, 90% of the water is purified. Note that the methane gas produced by anaerobic purification does not pollute the environment, but on the contrary is recovered and used as an energy source for producing steam, electricity and heat. The treatment is further refined by means of aerobic purification to produce even better water quality. This means that 50% of the treated water is reused, in particular for washing unprocessed potatoes.
Based on the principle that economy is not irreconcilable with ecology, but that on the contrary the two concepts are complementary, our group aims to:
- Recycle its industrial water partially by recovering its starch content as a raw material for the papermaking industry and by using the methane gas generated by its anaerobic purification station as an energy source.
- Recycle its by-products, currently used as livestock feed, and sewage sludge currently used as a soil improver (FERTIPOM).
Lutosa has reaffirmed that principle by launching the largest biogas cogeneration plant in Belgium, in close co-operation with Electrabel.
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- Cogeneration motor
Cogeneration is a technology based on the principle of combined production of electricity, steam and heat. Use is made of all the biogas produced from the fermentation of waste from the anaerobic purification station at Leuze. Set up in 2002, the cogeneration plant is able to cover part of the factory's energy requirements, as well as substantially reducing CO2 emissions. A second biogas cogeneration plant was set up in 2005 at the
St-Eloois-Vijve site.
Lutosa: Belgian fries brimming with green energy!