Baker Commodities, Inc. plays an essential role in protecting the environment. Our manufacturing facilities help to alleviate the nation’s problem of over-burdened landfills by recycling millions of pounds of animal by-product and used cooking oil that would otherwise be disposed of as waste. We utilize state-of-the-art technology to treat process water while complying with all odor abatement and air pollution regulations to preserve a clean and safe environment.
When materials are rendered, the process makes products that are used in the agriculture, oleo chemical, and biofuels industries. This means we produce fats and oils, protein meals and water. The materials we recycle are prevented from entering landfills to decay and create GHGs that pollute and have a detrimental effect on the environment.
Other recycling methods, such as composting, may get rid of the recyclable materials and make amendments for soils, but the composting process also produces large amounts of carbon dioxide and methane that is not captured. Gases from composting add to the GHGs in the atmosphere that may contribute to global warming or climate change. Products from the rendering processes do not.
Baker Commodities, Inc. is 100% committed to making every day a world environment day!
Biocycle Carbon Sequestration
When materials, such as meat trimmings, are rendered we are recycling the organic material and the carbons contained in it back into the lifecycle of the planet. The rendering process does not make Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) that enter our atmosphere. These rendered products stay in the biocycle as fats and protein meals that become part of an animal or a plant via the fertilizer made from rendered materials.
These animals and vegetables, in turn, contribute to the human food chain by giving us salads, grapes, eggs, milk, cheese or even the meat we buy and eat in our local grocery store. So, rendering allows for the sequestration or recycling of carbon as a beneficial method to improve the health of the public and planet. Rendering does not bury the useful organics our society needs; it keeps these organics available for life.
Lower Carbon Footprint – Rendering is Carbon Negative!
Renderers have always been at the forefront of recycling and landfill waste diversion of organic materials, and as we have grown and changed through history we have also looked for better economics. These changes have manifested in clean burning boilers, using biodiesel as fuel for the fleets of trucks, and more efficient equipment using less electricity. All of these changes have costs, but have also produced savings that until recently could not be measured.
The carbon footprint of rendering was studied recently via a project conducted by the North American Renderers Association at Clemson University’s Animal Co-Products Research & Education Center (ACREC). And as these studies progressed, Dr. Charles H. Gooding, Ph.D., P.E., Professor of Chemical Engineering, developed the “Carbon Footprint Calculator for Rendering Operation,” a method of calculating the carbon footprint of a rendering facility. This calculator now gave the rendering industry a method of measuring the good that is done by the rendering recycling process and industry. Baker Commodities is Proudly Carbon Negative. For more information, or to try the Calculator for yourself, visit the North American Renderers Association Website.
