Recycle the lees! Yes, Japan has come up with the innovative idea of recycling the solid and liquid dregs produced from shochu – a distilled Japanese liquor – and transform them into compound feed materials and ethanol.
The majority of these lees that are not used for animal feed are either spread on fields, dumped in the ocean, or incinerated leading to a nuisance for the environmental. Thus, in an effort to recycle its lees more effectively, the shochu industry has come up with this innovative solution.
The new MES facility will be capable of treating up to 100 tons of lees each day! The process involves splitting of the lees into solid and liquid fractions, concentrating and drying the solid into a dewatered cake, which can eventually be used for feed.
The liquid fraction generated from the lees along with the concentration process are refined, rather transformed, into ethanol that can easily be blended with gasoline to produce low-emission bio-fuel.
To build the facility, the Saito Recycling Association in Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan, contracted Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding Co. earlier this fall.
