How the Rendering Process Is Reducing Carbon Emissions
Businesses that utilize rendering help to significantly reduce carbon emissions. The rendering process reduces the amount of organic waste that decomposes in landfills and instead uses that waste to produce useful products. Rather than wasting animal by-products, agricultural rendering recycles them and creates sustainable products.
When your business utilizes rendering services, you can contribute your waste products to developing useful products such as personal care items, animal feed and biofuel. Biofuel emits significantly fewer carbon emissions than petroleum fuel, and rendering makes biofuel more available to drivers.
Rendering is beneficial for the environment, human health and natural resources. The less organic material that decomposes in landfills, the fewer carbon emissions enter the atmosphere. Continue reading to learn more about agricultural rendering and how it reduces carbon emissions to protect the environment.
What Is Rendering in Agriculture?
Agricultural rendering is a recycling process that repurposes animal by-products. North American consumers typically consider by-products such as animal fat, feathers, hides, blood, organ meat and grease to be inedible products, but renderers can recycle these waste materials for other purposes.
What Is the Rendering Process?
During the rendering process, renderers heat animal by-products through cooking and drying. This heating process recovers proteins and fats, converting the by-products into pathogen-free materials so they can be used to create new, sustainable products.
Is Rendering Sustainable?
Rendering is sustainable because it recycles unutilized animal products into new, sustainable products. It takes materials that would otherwise be wasted and repurposes them. Approximately 50% of an animal’s body is deemed inedible, but the rendering process turns animal by-products into valuable commodities.
Rendering yields safe material the industry can use to develop rendering products, such as:
- Personal care products
- Cleansers
- Biofuel
- Fertilizer
- Textiles
- Rubber
- Crayons
- Chalk
- Adhesives
- Animal feed and pet food
- Chemical products, such as solvents, explosives and paint
- Stearic acid
- Oleic acid
- Linoleic acid or glycerin
Rendering is an environmentally-friendly way to use animal by-products. The more animal by-products people render and transform into usable products, the fewer by-products end up in landfills.
Benefits of Rendering for the Environment
Rendering has incredible benefits for the environment and human health. Rendering helps preserve natural resources and support human survival because it accomplishes the following:
Conserves Water and Fuel
The rendering process involves cooking animal by-products. Cooking evaporates water, so unpolluted water can go through a municipal wastewater treatment process and return to the environment. Rendering reclaims approximately 3.7 billion gallons of water annually. The reclaimed water meets local, state and federal standards, so it can return to streams and rivers.
Protects Water Supplies, Ecosystems and Habitats
Federal regulations require landfills to have clay or plastic lining, but liners can leak and release harmful materials into the soil beneath them. Landfill sites produce a liquid known as leachate that can contaminate water sources and damage ecosystems. Landfills also harm animal habitats and natural resources because the space they take up eliminates acres of trees, plants and wildlife.
Rendering limits the number of animal by-products sent to landfills, which helps reduce the need for more landfill space and helps prevent harmful materials from leaking into essential water supplies. The fewer landfills the population needs, the more land and natural resources it has.
Prevents Animal and Human Health Hazards
Agricultural rendering prevents landfills from filling with animal by-products. Landfills emit gases, which create health hazards for nearby people and animals. Contaminated water is also a human health hazard, and landfill leaks can potentially contaminate water supplies. Rendering reduces the number of by-products sent to landfills, preventing and reducing potential health hazards.
Provides for the Animals Society Needs to Survive
The human population is continuously growing, and humans rely on animals for survival. Since many people eat animal products, it’s important to maintain the animal population to support human food supplies. Rendering produces nutritious and safe food for the animals we rely on for survival.
How Does the Rendering Process Help Reduce Carbon and Methane Emissions?
The rendering process helps reduce carbon emissions by decreasing the number of animal by-products filling landfills. Organic materials decompose in landfills and emit harmful methane gas and carbon dioxide. They also release hydrogen, non-methane organic compounds and nitrogen into the atmosphere. Each of these emissions contributes to climate change, but methane and carbon dioxide are the most environmentally harmful because they’re among the most potent greenhouse gases.
Methane absorbs the sun’s heat 84 times more effectively than carbon dioxide, significantly contributing to climate change. The rendering process reduces the number of organic materials in landfills, decreasing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions. Rendering prevents so many carbon emissions in the United States and Canada that its emission reductions are equal to eliminating 18.5 million cars from roadways per year.
Rendering reduces 90% more greenhouse gas emissions than industrial composting. Composting uses microorganisms to transform organic matter into compost and produce a soil amendment, but rendering is much better for the environment than composting.
Rendering also reduces carbon emissions by providing materials for biofuel. Biodiesel fuel emits 80% fewer carbon emissions than petroleum diesel, and the rendering process produces materials for biofuel. The more biofuel drivers use, the less harmful fuel they will use, reducing carbon emissions from vehicles.
Utilize Rendering Services From Baker Commodities
Agricultural rendering recycles animal by-products so people can use them to create sustainable products instead of sending them to decompose in landfills. When organic materials decompose in landfills, they release harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, harming the environment and presenting health hazards.
When you utilize rendering services, you help protect the environment and people from harmful gases, potential water contamination, health hazards, damaged habitats and lost natural resources. Baker Commodities offers various rendering services to help businesses positively impact the environment.
Our services help you get more value out of your unused animal by-products simply and easily. We can handle the entire process from collection and pickup services to helping you sell your rendered products. With excellent customer service, we’re there for you when you need us most and provide exceptional services.
Our high environmental quality standards ensure we recycle your products to the highest commercially viable standards. Contact Baker Commodities to learn more about our rendering services and how we can help you contribute to protecting the environment.