Bagasse... The Alternative Energy In India

Power shortage has been an ongoing problem in India. Facing the international oil price increase, and suffering from shortage of energy, India began to turn their attention to alternative energy – using bagasse to generate electricity.

India, as one of the top 3 sugar-producing countries in the world, has up to 4 million hectares of sugarcane plantation each year, and bagasse generated by sugar mills amounted up to 40 million tons each year.

India’s current central power system is still not complete as almost 70% of rural households still do not have access to electricity.  As such, there are huge potential for using sugar cane bagasse to generate power in India, because bagasse power generation can be easily transmitted to nearby rural households where a unit of heat generated is equivalent to the central power system with 2 units of fossil fuel power generation and transmission.

Unlike fossil fuel which contains sulfur matter, the bagasse can be burnt completely, therefore greatly reduce pollution. The Indian government realized the advantages of having local power plant by bagasse and began to change the power generation policy.  At the end of 20th century, the State Electricity Commission of India abolished the decades of discrimination policy to the local power plant, and had carried out a de-centralized power generation management rules.  They began to aggressively promote the use of bagasse power generation in rural areas, as well as encourage private sectors to investment in their factories.

Since India’s State Electricity Commission changed the power generation policy, the effect is very significant. Currently, India’s sugar manufacturing industry has about 87 sugar cane bagasse power plants, with a total power generating capacity of 710 MW. These bagasse power plants have changed hundreds of thousands of families’ life in rural India. In Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and Andhra Pradesh, bagasse power plants are becoming the main power supply source.

Let’s see what benefits brought to Indian society by bagasse power generation.
From the aspect of electricity bill: by using local bagasse power plant to generate and transmit power, the farmers in rural areas can achieve a saving of approximately 31% of the electricity cost as compared to power generated by using coal or oil.  In another word, for every 100 USD a farmer used to spent, he now can save 30 USD!

From the aspect of emissions: the emission of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are significantly lower than conventional fossil fuels, coal or oil.  This is due to the characteristically low levels of sulfur and nitrogen associated with bagasse.  It is expected that the bagasse power plants in India, including those still under construction, will be able to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in India by 5.5 million tons each year.

Therefore, if the sugar manufacturing industry in India can tap into the full potential of bagasse power generation, more and more Indian farmers will be able to benefit from this new power energy, giving more people staying in the rural area with a better living condition in the near future.

Cardboard Baler.. an essential machine in cardboard recycling

Cardboard is the number one packing material used for packing almost all types of commercial products these days.  Therefore, it is no surprise that the most significant amount of waste that ends up in the landfills around the world is OCC (old corrugated cardboard).

Hence, a cardboard baling machine has an essential role in the cardboard recycling process.  This machine compresses the waste cardboard and bundles it into regularly-shaped bales.  A compacted cardboard bale can withstand external elements caused by environment so that you can just leave it exposed to the weather without any worries, unlike a bunch of loose cardboard which have to be stored under a roof.  Also, due to the well compacting process, the kindling point of a cardboard bale is greatly reduced, so it has lower risk on catching fire.  As a result, storage of the bales not only helped you to make full use of the space, it also increases the safety level of your workshop, as fire hazard is significantly reduced as compared to loose cardboard.

How to choose a suitable baler for your OCC baling? Below are some tips for you.

** Check the volume of OCC that you handle daily.
If your expected hourly output is below 1 ton, vertical baler should be the right choice for you. However if your expectation is above 1 ton, you can either acquire more than one unit of vertical balers or simply switch to a horizontal baler.

** Take into consideration the labor cost in your country.
If labor cost is not an issue in your country, you may consider more units of vertical balers or manual-tie horizontal balers, rather than the fully automatic series IF your daily output is below 20 tons.  However for areas with high labor cost, a fully automatic baler is definitely more favorable if you are handling large amount of OCC (15 tons and above) daily and with high output expectation.

** Check the size of OCC you are baling.
Large pieces of OCC will require bigger feed opening so as to easily feed the material into the chamber. Bigger feed opening corresponds to bigger chamber, and bigger chamber means higher efficiency because you can load more material in each shot.

** Check the bale size
If your bales are designated to be exported by containers, bale size needs to be well calculated based on the container size (normally 40’ HQ) to make sure the container can be fully filled without any wastage of space. Also, pressure force of the baler is also a critical factor and needs to be well calculated. Higher pressure force makes higher bale density, and high density bales means more cardboard can be filled into a container.

**

 Consider future growth of your company
Final advice to you is that when you choose a cardboard baler, do consider your future business expansion.  Always choose the one with the baling capacity above your current volume.

Sinobaler provides top quality baling equipment which was developed based on sound business/customer relationships. Customer satisfaction, product quality, eco-friendliness, and competitive prices are cornerstones in Sinobaler’s corporate philosophy. Visit us today for information on top quality baling machines at www.sinobaler.com, or request for a quote at info@sinobaler.com.

Everyone Should Be Conscious About Recycling

Recycling is a pretty simple concept - i.e. take a useless object and turned it into something useful instead of throwing it away.  Generally, when you found a new way to re-use something old, you are recycling.  But on a larger scale, used consumer products that are recyclable, are typically collected by recycling companies or organizations to process it into raw materials, and then further remade into new products.

Sending waste to landfills and incinerators are the conventional ways of disposing your unwanted waste material.  However, landfills not only take up huge area of space, it also causes contamination and pollution to the soil and water.  Incinerators, on the other side, contribute to air pollution and global climate change with its greenhouse gas emission.  In order to prevent these harmful pollutions to escalate further, recycling plays an important role.  On top of that, recycling also helps to conserve natural resources. 

Instead of making brand new product from pure raw materials, making use of recycled materials can be more environmental friendly and sometimes more cost effective.  For example: Aluminum (found mainly as bauxite) is the third most abundant element in Earth's crust (which is after oxygen and silicon), but extracting this metal from bauxite is highly energy intensive.  It takes four tons of bauxite to just produce one ton of aluminum.  Compared to aluminum recycling, it will only use a fraction of such energy.  On average, the aluminum beverage cans get recycled within 60 days; in another words, a can of soda is back on the supermarket shelves sixty days after you have disposed it into the recycle bin.

For a recycling company to effectively collect back the recyclable waste, the baling machine is an essential equipment to have.  A baler compresses bulky, loose waste materials into dense, regularly-shaped bales. With its reduced volume, more waste materials can be transported on a single trip by truck, trailer or containers for further recycling purposes, thus saving greatly on cost and energy involved in transportation.  With the growing importance and popularity of baler machines, as well as the unique properties of different material types, much effort has been devoted to developing the baling presses for specific material, so as to achieve optimal baling results.  There are typically three main types of baling equipment - Manual Balers, Semi-auto Balers and Automatic Balers.  The best way to find the right baling press for your need is to contact a specialized baler manufacturer.

As you can see, apart from environmental benefits, recycling can also helps creating more job opportunities.  Economic analysis shows that recycling can generate three times more revenue per ton as landfill disposal and almost six times as many jobs!   Therefore, everyone should be conscious about recycling, and make an effort to do it anytime and anywhere.