November 28, 2012, Pearl, Illinois. Big River Fish Corporation (BRF) has acquired a Liquid Food Composter (LFC) machine from Power Knot LLC to digest waste fish on site and save sending the waste to the landfill. The LFC is a biological high technology digester that is totally green and saves the mess, cost, and inconvenience of dumping the waste on a landfill. The LFC reduces the carbon footprint of the company by over 800,000 lb (400 tonne) CO2 per year and has a payback of less than two years.This video is a testimonial from a customer who processes asian carp in Illinois. Using the LFC helped minimize the amount of waste fish that needed to be hauled off to the landfill.BRF is situated a few miles from both the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers. The company processes Asian Carp that is caught in these rivers for sale in the USA and China. Although many shipments from BRF comprise whole fish, much fish is processed at the facility. This processing removes the fillets which are sold and leaves the head and guts which are waste. Waste is also generated if fish cannot be processed in time. The typical waste at BRF is about 700~900 lb per day.Asian Carp can grow up to 5 ft (1.5 m) and weigh up to 125 lb (55 kg).
Disposing of this waste has been an increasingly troublesome problem for the company. The waste cannot be left for a weekly collection as it creates an awful smell. Instead, it had to be taken daily to the Pike County Landfill, 35 miles away.Rick Smith, the owner of Big River Fish, estimated that the costs of disposal were averaging $75 per day and likely to continue to rise. Rick wanted a more cost effective solution and he chose to use an LFC-200 from Power Knot to digest the waste fish and send the output down the drain.The LFC (Liquid Food Composter) is a totally green biological high technology fermenting machine that uses microorganisms to digest waste food. The LFC-200 has a rated capacity of 440~800 lb per day, but it digests about 400 lb of waste fish in less than eight hours and is therefore able to keep up with the production at the facility.
I was just amazed when we first got the machine. We put 400 lb of fish in at the end of the first day and I found it hard to believe that it was all gone in the morning. ” Rick Smith
Instead of loading the waste fish into the back of a pickup truck, the staff at BRF put waste fish into the machine every 30 minutes. This is more convenient and less messy for them than driving the waste to the landfill.
The staff has an easier time now the machine is installed. The LFC has helped our operation become cleaner as well as saving the environment. We have had no problems with the machine and we are always pleased that there is no smell from the machine. ” Rick Smith
Prior to getting the LFC-200, BRF was paying over $19k per year to dispose of waste fish:Breakdown of costs for disposal of waste fish prior to getting LFC from Power Knot
| Tipping fee charged by landfill | $17 to $25 per load |
| Mileage on pickup truck | $35 round trip |
| Labor to drive to landfill and back | $23 to $26 per trip |
| Total: | $75 to $80 per day |
| Annual costs | $19,000 to $21.000 per year |
With the acquisition of the LFC those costs of disposal are gone and the payback on the machine is under two years.Big River Fish (BRF) was founded in 1999 in Pearl Illinois and is one of the largest processors of Asian Carp in the United States. The fish is sold whole, filleted, smoked, or dried. Much whole fish or filleted fish is exported to China, while smoked and dried fish is produced for ethnic groups.
BRF is building a new facility of 200k ft² near to the existing facility. This will allow the company to process five tons (10,000 lb) of fish per day. You can read an article about this facility here.
For more information about BRF, access www.bigriverfish.com.