Industrial ecosystems in the crude palm oil industry in Thailand

The crude palm oil industry plays an important role in Thai economic development and in enhancing the economic welfare of the population. Despite obvious benefits of this industrial development, it contributes to environmental degradation from both input and output sides of its activities. On the input side, crude palm oil mill uses much water in production process and consumes high energy. On the output side , manufacturing process generates large quantity of wastewater, solid waste/ by-product and air pollution. The current breakdowns of industrial wastes and recoverable materials are empty fruit brunch, fiber, shell kernel and ash. It is estimated that by year 2002, a total of 1.8 million ton of solid wastes/ byproducts and 2.5 million m of wastewater are generated. Industrial eco-systems are the environment friendly systems for industrial waste recycling, resembling the food chains, food webs and the nutrient cycles in natural environment. The crude palm oil mill has developed a number of ecosystems for its waste recycling. This paper describes the nature of these eco-systems, divided as in-plant, upstream industry and cross-industry of crude palm oil industrial in Thailand based on e n v i r o n m e n t a l l y b a l a n c e d i n d u s t r i a l c o m p l e x . 1. I n t r o d u c t i o n Industrial waste handling is the final and critical step for industrial pollution control. It is also an important issue to cleaner production and sustainable development. Industrial eco-systems are the environmental friendly systems for industrial waste recycling, resembling the food chains, food webs and the nutrient recycles in natural environment (liu and Shyng, 1999). Industrial ecosystems are much more environment friendly compared to other waste treatments such as incineration, solidification and landfill because: • It transforms the harmful component of waste into usable substance. • It slows down the depletion of primary resources in industrial production. There are three stages in the evolution of an industrial ecosystem. Type I industrial ecosystem, are characterized by linear, one-way flows of materials and energy where the production, use, and disposal of products occurred without reuse, or recovery, of energy or material. In Type II industrial ecosystem ,some internal cycling of raw materials occurs, but there is still a need for virgin material input, and wastes continue to be generated and disposed of outside the economic system. Hypothetical Type III industrial ecosystem would be characterized by completes internal cycling of materials. A mix of TypeI and Tpye II material flows can characterize current industrial ecosystem. The Type III industrial ecosystem model, material is highly conserved, no waste material is released, and heat escapes It is keeping with the limiting goal of the “zero discharge” adopted by several major companies (Allenby and Richards,1994). Chao (1999) reported that four type of industrial ecosystems are envisaged: