Environment
Maple Lodge Farms is committed to operating its manufacturing facilities in a manner which produces the least environmental impact and which fosters a sustainable future by placing emphasis on the efficient use of resources. Toward this end we perform regular evaluation and continuous improvement initiatives. We fulfill this mission by:
- Instilling in our employees a sense of responsibility for the environment as part of our corporate culture
- Developing
through education and training, an understanding of environmental
issues and sharing this with our partners
- Being sensitive and responsive to the environmental concerns of the communities in which we operate
- Ensuring
stringent compliance to applicable environmental laws and regulations
and exceeding those standards whenever feasible
- Incorporating
innovative solutions to improve our products and processes in order to
lessen the environmental impact of our business operations
- Managing our resources by employing the three R’s – reduce, reuse, recycle – in every facet of our organization
- Measuring and monitoring our progress for environmental improvement initiatives
Biofilter Technology
In
our continued commitment to environmental responsibility, Maple Lodge
Farms has gone to great lengths to reduce our use of chemicals to
prevent odour emissions from our facility. With support from the
Ontario Ministry of Environment and Energy, Maple Lodge Farms was
amongst the first processors in Canada to install a biological air
filter in its Brampton, Ontario plant. With the advent of “Biofilter” technology
plant air emissions pass through a bed of organic material to ensure
that any adverse odours or contaminants do not enter the atmosphere.
Prior to installing the Biofilter system, Maple Lodge Farms used an
odour control system that cleaned air from the plant by passing it
through water scrubbers. The water was then treated with chlorine
compounds to destroy the odour causing organic compounds contained in
the exhaust air stream. Since installing the biological air-filtration
system, Maple Lodge Farms has eliminated the use of potentially
hazardous chlorine-based agents from the air treatment process.
Clean Energy
The desire to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions prompted us to construct a five-megawatt co-generation facility
at our processing plant in Brampton, Ontario. This installation
consists of a Solar 5MW natural gas turbine/generator, a heat recovery
steam generator and a direct contact water heater. The cogeneration
plant provides approximately half of our electricity requirement, and
as a side benefit supplies all of our steam and hot water
requirements. Previously, the steam and hot water were provided by
dedicated systems that consumed natural gas as fuel. The switch-over
to cogeneration has resulted in significant reductions to our carbon
emissions.
In a nutshell, the solar gas turbine is similar to a jet engine. This drives a generator to produce electricity. The hot turbine exhaust gasses are routed through a boiler where steam is made for our processing plant. Next, the boiler exhaust gas passes through a direct contact water heater, which recovers an additional 12 million BTU/Hr from flue gas to provide us with our hot water supply. At the time of installation, projections indicated an annual reduction in energy consumption of 680,000m3 of natural gas.
