Industrial Ecology and the Geoenvironment - Sustainable Practices in Geoenvironmental Engineering - page 127

and impurities, and other items such as the oxidation products, free fatty acids, and carot-
enoids. The two methods for reinement include physical (steam) and chemical (alkali)
reining processes. Fatty acid distillate and reined bleached and deodorized palm oil are
obtained from the physical process, and soap stock, and acid oil together with the reined,
bleached, and deodorized palm oil are obtained with the chemical process. Separation or
fractionation into liquid and solid phases is performed by thermomechanical means.
The major areas of concern in respect to geoenvironment impacts are (a) energy con-
sumption in the reining processes, (b) excessive water consumption, and (c) efluent and
solid waste discharge. It is estimated that efluent discharge (palm oil mill efluent POME)
is from two to three times that of the amount of palm oil processed. Since the discharge
contains organic compounds, these can have some severe consequences on the receptors
in the area of discharge.
4.5.4 Land Environment Impact and Sustainability Indicators
Land environment impacts from the upstream phases of the various sectors compris-
ing the agroindustry (production of raw goods and source materials) will be discussed
in Chapter 6. The indicators and impacts discussed in Section 4.4.3 for the metallurgical
industries apply equally well to the agroprocessing industries. What has been omitted
from a discussion on the impacts in the upstream agro industries and from that section is
the effect of a monoculture on the land environment and the ecosystem. Survival of the
natural indigenous species is often dificult, especially since it is common practice to use
integrated pest management to enhance the growth of the monoculture species. Loss of
soil quality and impact on biodiversity are some of the more prominent impacts.
4.6 Petrochemical and Chemical Industries
The use of inorganic and organic chemicals as source materials for downstream industries
brings with it the problems of control of production operations and management of dis-
charges during operations and discharges as waste products. There are three groups of
industries that use chemicals as source materials. These include (a) petrochemical indus-
tries that work with organic chemicals, (b) chemical industries that use inorganic chemicals
as their feedstock, and (c) pharmaceutical industries that use both inorganic and organic
chemicals as source material. We should also note that pharmaceutical industries use a wide
variety of source materials in addition to inorganic and organic chemicals. The interactions
of pharmaceutical industries with the geoenvironment are not considered in this section.
4.6.1 Petrochemical Industries
Petrochemical industries constitute the bulk of the chemical (inorganic and organic chemi-
cals) industries in the world. The overwhelming portion of organic chemicals is derived
from feedstock obtained from: crude oil, natural gas liquids, and coal. The two major
processes involved in obtaining organic chemical feedstock are (1) chemical reaction and
(2) puriication of reaction products (USEPA, 2002). The simplest chemical reaction process
is obtained in the batch reaction method where chemicals used to obtain the desired reac-
tions and products are introduced into a reaction vessel. At completion of the reaction