Sustainable products for the agriculture sector

Speaker 1

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Good afternoon everyone, and welcome

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to this, our latest episode of Ask the Expert.

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We're talking today about an area of Veolia that not many of

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our followers are possibly aware that Veolia

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is heavily, heavily involved.

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It's a key part of our ecological transformation purpose.

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It's all about optimising resources and enabling

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waste materials to be repurposed and reused.

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This is exactly what we do with the paper

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crumb by product generated by British paper mills,

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turning it into a range of sustainable and high quality livestock

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bedding products with a range of fabulous benefits.

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I know that you are going to be surprised,

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and I know you're going to enjoy today's conversation.

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Joining me today is Stephanie Kerr,

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Agricultural Sales Co-ordinator and Edward Gregg operations manager.

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To discuss this fascinating side of our business in much more detail.

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Steph Edward, would you like to introduce yourself?

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Steph, you first

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Maybe.

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Edward then?

Speaker 2

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Yes, Hi. Martyn Yeah. Yes.

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So Edward Gregg, I'm Operations Manager for Organic Waste

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that we recycle within Veolia. I look after a range of

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waste, but primarily looking after

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the approximately 120,000 tonnes of paper crumble

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that is coming out of about six paper mills

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that we have contracts with currently.

Speaker 1

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It's a big number.

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Steph I think it may be my technical glitch there.

Speaker 3

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Hi, Thanks, Martyn.

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So yeah, I'm the agricultural sales coordinator

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for mainly the poultry side of the paper sales business,

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So I work very closely with our sister company, Arden Wood

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shavings,

Speaker 1

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fabulous.

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Thanks.

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Looking forward to speaking to you both today

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to go

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into a little bit more detail about all of the

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this stuff, because I'm quite sure of some people who know Veolia well

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are already surprised that we're talking about animal bedding.

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First thing I want to do to explore this topic is is talk about Veolia

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being a provider of livestock products and what exactly

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these bedding products are made from and how they’re produced.

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Ed can I ask you.

Speaker 2

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Yes. So and the paper crumble that we use

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for inclusion within our bedding products is manufactured.

Speaker 3

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Can you hear me now?

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Oh, yes.

Speaker 1

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We've got you there.

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Steph, sorry if the gremlins are getting into the machine.

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Ed was just talking to us and explaining about what the product is

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and where it comes from.

Speaker 2

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Yes. So we

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the the paper crumble that we include within our agribed

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and comfort bed comes from tissue paper manufacture.

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And the tissue paper is made originally

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from recycled paper, so waste office paper.

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household collected cardboard and and paper

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that typically gets either collected directly or it may even come out

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of a Veolia recycling facility

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and supplied to to one of our customers.

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And what they will they will tend to do.

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They will repulp that product

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and they will extract the fibres

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out of it, that they can then further make tissue paper with.

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And typically paper can be recycled up

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to five times before there's no no significant length of fibre left.

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So so the crumble that we have is short fibre,

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it can no longer be used to make to make tissue

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alongside that,

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that fibre comes a certain amount of what's I suppose they would call filler.

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So to make

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writing paper and make paper usable they put filler in there like, like lime.

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So we get the added benefit of fibre and we get lime within our

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within our product.

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I suppose from that, from that point they,

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the mill will will de-water that that products to approximately 50% dry.

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Solids and we will we will collect that in a

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in range of vehicles but typically into sort of

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articulated tippers or walking floors.

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And we will transport that to a drying facility.

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Now we've just got ourselves just purchased ourselves

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this year our new drying facility at Knutsford.

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Although we've been operating that with contractors for nearly a year now.

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We now own the asset for 

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after that length of time. Monitoring

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performance and the quality that comes comes out of there.

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So that site has the capacity

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to dry 50,000 tonnes of input material

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which will produce approximately 25,000 tonnes of bedding

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to drive off a little bit of water and therefore not a lot of lights.

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And the system there is the paper store

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that outside when we get there and

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and is then with the use of sort of loading loading shovels is put in,

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put into the dryer where the, the feed is, is, is controlled into there.

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But typically we are drying about ten tonnes an hour going into the machine

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and the dryer itself is a trommel,

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such a long cylindrical tumble dryer, if you like, that has a

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a biomass heat source of the front end that produces

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a heat of up to 550 degrees

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and the product spends approximately

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15 to 20 minutes

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retention time enables a continuous flow so that turns and turns

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until the product reaches the the dry matter that we acquire.

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And that's typically around 90% dry solids.

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So from the points that the the paper crumb enters the dryer,

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it doesn't touch the ground until it goes into our bio secure store

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and it goes through some dust extraction and some additional sieving

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just to remove out any any lumps that might come out of it.

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But fundamentally it is 100% bio-secure when it gets into that store.

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So, you know, those temperatures of 500, 550 degrees, we are

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we are killing any any bacteria virus or

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or fungal spores that may well be in there

Speaker 1

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fabulous.

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It always interesting interests me and intrigues me.

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You know, this is a waste material.

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And in my career I've quoted many a paper mill, on sending this stuff

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to landfill or or lots of other end of life

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solutions, whereas

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this is is actually quite a technical solution

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that's been implemented to really add value into a new product.

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I'm really interested.

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Thanks for giving us an overview of the a great process.

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Steph, I'm going to come to you.

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Can you give us some more of the information in particular

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on the poultry bedding products, that Veolia are producing and the benefits of them?

Speaker 3

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Yeah, absolutely.

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So um Agribed, which is our main,

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products, supplies, poultry.

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It's an alternative to wood savings.

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And because of that, it's quite cost competitive on the market at the moment.

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Um we as Edward said, deliver this

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in bulk nationwide from

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Cumbria to Devon and it's got year round availability.

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So the main reasons why it's a good broiler units in particular

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it's got excellent

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absorbency so it's made out of tissue as Edward said,

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and because of that it acts like a kitchen.

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roll would, it sucks up water and it's perfect for the job, basically.

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In that sense, it's bio secure,

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which is obviously something that the poultry industry rely on,

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not just in its production but in its deliveries.

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We offer a specialist service, again with our sister company, Arden Wood Savings.

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They deliver it on their walking floor blowers.

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So the bedding, once it's produced, doesn't actually see

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the light of day again until it's come out the other side of the chicken unit.

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It's not only

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bio secure in that sense,

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but it's a fairly sterile bedding because of the way it's kiln dried.

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So on top of that, it does make it sterile for the chickens, but also comfortable.

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So it keeps them quite comfy, which ensures

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good chick starts if you spread it at the right depth at the start.

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And another thing that this also helps with

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in the poultry

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industry, there are certain marks

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to be made against a broiler which is a meat chicken.

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They have to have good seating

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to ensure a lack of disease such as pododermatitis

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, which is basically a bacteria build up in the feet.

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And this bedding helps ensure that the podo and hock marks stay down

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and that the chickens don't get bruised because nobody wants to buy a chicken

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like looking like that in a supermarket.

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So it's the bedding really that sort of ensures that quality

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and because it's so absorbent as well,

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there is a severe reduction in top up requirements.

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So within the sheds there will always be some need

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for top up bales.

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For example, there's a leak in the shed or there's

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water getting in in some capacity.

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There's usually tougher bales required,

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and the more absorbent your bedding is, the less you need of that.

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So it not only reduces costs but it can reduce labor as well.

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It's got an elevated

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P H because of this higher lime content in it as well.

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So again, a reduction in bad bacteria.

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So things like not just pododermatitis but any types of spores,

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bird flu, anything like that, it will, you know,

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should be effective against. It’s easy to spread.

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So its easy to put in the shed and it's easier to clear out and spreads in

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just the same way as a wood products would even though it is an alternative source.

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And most importantly, it's compliant with DEFRA,

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the RSPCA and Red Tractor regulations for use

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as animal bedding

Speaker 1

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Thats incredible.

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It's I'm sure I have one of the best jobs on the planet sometimes,

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you know, working from across all the range of products

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and services that Veolia provide, as the head of marketing,

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and I get to hear

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words like pododermatitis

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We have been practicing

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and the whole

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conversation we're having here

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about taking a waste material and creating a product

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and not just a product, but a product thats adding real value,

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you know, I'm really, really inspired and I feel quite

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yeah, I feel like tomorrow as I'm going around the supermarket doing my

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my supermarket shopping, I'm going to be looking for the broilers

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and knowing that, you know,

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there's a good chance these broilers have been raised on on a Veolia product.

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That's that's going to make me even more interesting down

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the pub than I already am.

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And you mentioned it's available all year round.

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And I guess that really does help the farmer that helps

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the supply chain because it manages to

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to balance a quality that probably wasn't there before.

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I guess. Steph,

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What types of customers do we work with though.

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I've started to talk there

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about supermarkets pretending I know what I'm talking about, but I don't.

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So can you tell us, you know, who are the customers we work with?

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And what about these products?

Speaker 3

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Yeah, absolutely.

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So um one.

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case study we've got at the moment and one of our more notable projects,

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we're currently working with the UK's largest integrator

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on the RSPCA, higher welfare and slower reared chickens.

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So these birds are growing stocking densities

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of less than 30 kilograms per metre squared.

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And because of that they are seen as the sort of the top of the top chickens and

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it's also in line with something called the better Chicken commitment,

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which is something that's going round at the moment.

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And the Co-Op has been sort of the latest ones to sort of

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pull their stock in line with that and say that we want to comply to this.

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And it's probably the way things will go in the future.

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So these particular birds are reared on our bedding

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and they go into supply M&S as a supermarket.

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So we're not only working directly with the farmers, but

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we're working with the integrator that's supplying the farms

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who all the way through to get to the end to the supermarket.

Speaker 1

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Really

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fabulous.

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That's that's it's a great story, isn't it?

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And it really, really pleased that we're sharing it with so many people today.

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While I mentioned that if anybody does have any questions,

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if we have got time at the end, we'd love to answer them for you.

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So if you do want to add a question, into the chat.

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Please do so and we'll try and answer it if we have time.

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If not, we'll get to you.

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In terms of a response on the on the feed.

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There will also be links put into the chat after we finished

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to get some more information all about what we're talking.

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We discussed poultry, bedding.

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We've talked about

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the the supply chain

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and where we are getting this material from, how we're creating it,

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how we're then delivering it, how we're then cleaning up afterwards.

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I'm guessing because I know this materials is also used for another life.

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What other

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types of livestock bedding do we produce?

Speaker 3

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So we just very similar products

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and that we produce in the same way, but we also supply into the dairy sector.

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And it's very similar to things I've mentioned before.

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It's just with livestock, you can apply it in a different capacity.

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So for dairy cattle it's still imperative that they have good absorbency

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in their sheds because they don't want to be sleeping on wet bedding.

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It can produce bad bacteria called mastitis in the udder

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and nobody wants that for their milk stock.

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So our bedding, because it's got a higher

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p h content and it has a liming effect and that also helps keep cell counts down.

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We've got farmers in the north west that have won awards for their

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how good their cell counts are because it all reflects on their milk production

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and their using our bedding. We have got two dedicated

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account managers and experts in the field of dairy

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that can probably tell you a lot more of us than I can.

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But mastitis is the main thing for them in that sense, that it does keep that down.

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It works well in most slurry systems as well.

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And again, it's compliant with DEFRA, the EA

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and red tractor for use  as animal bedding and livestock.

Speaker 1

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That's great.

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It's just loving this one!

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Ed I'm going to come to you with a question now, though.

00:15:35:15 - 00:15:39:01
We've talked, as I said, about, you know, the production and how it's then used.

00:15:39:15 - 00:15:42:05
What happens to these products

00:15:42:05 - 00:15:43:00
at the end of life.

00:15:43:00 - 00:15:45:18
So when they've been used as bedding, what happens then?

Speaker 2

00:15:46:07 - 00:15:48:23
So typically

00:15:48:23 - 00:15:50:24
certainly, what they produce

00:15:50:24 - 00:15:54:12
in poultry litter in dairy cows, farmyard manure

00:15:54:18 - 00:15:57:20
or slurry and both of those and especially poultry

00:15:58:24 - 00:16:01:21
litter have a very high nitrogen value to it

00:16:02:16 - 00:16:05:19
and is a very good fertilizer

00:16:06:01 - 00:16:08:01
mostly they can get a lot of organic matter

00:16:08:01 - 00:16:10:05
and a lot of nutrients that plants require.

00:16:10:14 - 00:16:12:03
So typically, yes, they are.

00:16:12:03 - 00:16:19:02
They are spread to two glands as part of a normal farming farming practice.

00:16:19:17 - 00:16:23:20
Now, I suppose the enhancement that we would we would add with our

00:16:24:10 - 00:16:26:20
with our paper bedding is that is that lime content.

00:16:27:03 - 00:16:30:08
So we perhaps add that lime is going back

00:16:30:08 - 00:16:33:20
in, back into the soil and where, where land has

00:16:35:13 - 00:16:37:02
an acid type soil.

00:16:37:02 - 00:16:40:11
The, the lime effect can help that, and correct

00:16:41:02 - 00:16:44:17
PH problems within within land making nutrients more available.

00:16:44:17 - 00:16:47:13
So it makes it makes them more a more balanced, usable

00:16:48:12 - 00:16:51:06
litter/farm yard manure in the back end.

Speaker 1

00:16:53:24 - 00:16:55:22
That's incredible so that's the

00:16:55:22 - 00:16:58:09
the back onto the land. You might

00:17:00:01 - 00:17:03:07
hear from my accent I'm somewhere from up north

00:17:04:06 - 00:17:07:07
and I know I've got some friends certainly around the Huddersfield

00:17:07:07 - 00:17:10:13
area farms and a couple of them got AD facilities and

00:17:11:12 - 00:17:14:17
if I'm chatting to them this weekend which I might be and I'm going to conversation,

00:17:14:23 - 00:17:18:15
is this something a product I'm just trying to cross over here.

00:17:18:15 - 00:17:21:17
What I do know about AD in this is it's something that could be used

00:17:21:17 - 00:17:23:02
in an AD facility.

Speaker 2

00:17:23:02 - 00:17:24:11
Yes, absolutely.

00:17:24:11 - 00:17:29:06
So you, what a poultry litter does, does get used in AD facilities,

00:17:29:06 - 00:17:33:21
and and our litter with the inclusion of our bedding works absolutely fine.

00:17:33:21 - 00:17:35:24
It worked. It works really well, in fact.

00:17:35:24 - 00:17:39:20
And there are other other avenues for

00:17:41:00 - 00:17:41:17
poultry litter,

00:17:41:17 - 00:17:45:12
certainly there are there are companies within that within

00:17:45:12 - 00:17:49:13
the UK that do actually burn the poultry litter because it has quite a high energy value.

00:17:50:12 - 00:17:54:04
And they will, they will do that, exports energy to the grid

00:17:54:04 - 00:17:58:05
and they will also then use the resultant ash as a

00:17:59:16 - 00:18:01:19
as a soil conditioner and fertiliser as well.

00:18:02:07 - 00:18:06:06
And that is something that, you know, we are looking at as a sort of a wider

00:18:06:06 - 00:18:09:19
Veolia just even make this more circular that

00:18:10:24 - 00:18:13:01
like the paper mills do have a high energy demand

00:18:13:01 - 00:18:18:12
for both electricity and and heat and it may be in the future that you know

00:18:18:24 - 00:18:22:21
we we actually supply them with the raw ingredients to make their tissue paper.

00:18:22:21 - 00:18:24:11
We recover their short fibers

00:18:24:11 - 00:18:27:20
and turn it into bedding and then again recover the litter

00:18:28:10 - 00:18:33:09
and incinerate it, recover the energy supply that's to to paper mill.

00:18:33:18 - 00:18:37:13
And even at the back end of that, still make an organic manure fertilizer

00:18:37:13 - 00:18:39:12
that could be supplied by back to farmers.

00:18:39:12 - 00:18:45:01
So truly a a circular solution for a waste paper products

Speaker 1

00:18:46:06 - 00:18:46:21
You're going to make

00:18:46:21 - 00:18:49:22
Marketers have to work really hard now as we have to find another

00:18:49:22 - 00:18:52:14
phrase for the ultimate circular economy,

00:18:53:19 - 00:18:56:17
the closed loop of

00:18:56:17 - 00:18:58:22
a closed loop of all closed loops.

00:18:58:22 - 00:19:01:18
But is that, Steph I was sort of reading your body language.

00:19:01:18 - 00:19:03:14
You look like you want you to say something there.

00:19:03:14 - 00:19:06:01
Is there anything else that we could be doing with this?

Speaker 3

00:19:06:01 - 00:19:09:01
Yeah. So there is something quite exciting that we're working on as well

00:19:09:17 - 00:19:12:16
in another division of our team, and that's biochar.

00:19:13:03 - 00:19:17:17
So it enhances soil through fertilizing, fertilizing it,

00:19:17:17 - 00:19:22:23
but it's made off the back of poultry litter through pyrolysis.

00:19:22:23 - 00:19:27:05
So that's burning it essentially to make it into an almost charcoal substance.

00:19:28:05 - 00:19:30:15
It's a recognized carbon removal method.

00:19:30:15 - 00:19:34:06
But really exciting part is it generates a lot of heat to make that.

00:19:34:14 - 00:19:38:22
So in theory, we could have these on farm burning our litter

00:19:39:12 - 00:19:43:04
that then, you know, is going through and that heat is heating that poultry

00:19:43:05 - 00:19:46:06
unit in place to keep those chickens warm for the next crop.

00:19:46:08 - 00:19:49:23
So it is a full circular economy of what can happen on the farm.

Speaker 1

00:19:50:19 - 00:19:53:19
It's a real Veolia solution, isn't it, what you just said,

00:19:53:19 - 00:19:56:22
You know, we're de polluting because we're we're removing the

00:19:57:19 - 00:20:01:20
the fertilizing material, that it's heavy in phosphates, etc.

00:20:01:20 - 00:20:05:12
but from a in a natural way, it's decarbonizing.

00:20:05:12 - 00:20:09:03
If we're being able to use it as a heat source rather than using fossil fuels.

00:20:09:14 - 00:20:12:08
And it's resource regeneration to the max.

00:20:12:19 - 00:20:14:17
And you're a great team.

00:20:14:17 - 00:20:17:11
I really appreciate what you're doing there and these ideas.

00:20:18:21 - 00:20:21:05
But like most of the sectors, you know,

00:20:22:08 - 00:20:25:20
agriculture is under pressure, isn't it, to improve its environmental performance?

00:20:26:06 - 00:20:29:14
And I guess we've just touched that there's ways they're doing that.

00:20:29:14 - 00:20:34:01
But is it really sustainable and does it really fit in

00:20:34:01 - 00:20:37:10
as a sustainable future product?

Speaker 3

00:20:39:01 - 00:20:40:08
So yeah,

00:20:40:13 - 00:20:44:10
I think it does, because although you know technically it is a waste product,

00:20:44:10 - 00:20:48:02
but that waste product can get used twice three times which we said

00:20:48:03 - 00:20:51:07
it can be a real circular economy from start to finish.

00:20:51:07 - 00:20:55:10
And it's, you know, it's being saved from going to landfill we can use as bedding.

00:20:55:11 - 00:20:56:22
it can then get burnt. 

00:20:56:22 - 00:21:01:14
It could go in an AD plant, through a slurry system however you want to get rid of it.

00:21:01:14 - 00:21:04:14
It's still got a benefit off the back of the original benefit.

00:21:04:14 - 00:21:08:12
So we are always looking at ways we can expand these things as well,

00:21:08:12 - 00:21:09:18
like I said with the bio-char

00:21:11:07 - 00:21:12:17
organic mineral fertilizers.

00:21:12:17 - 00:21:16:13
There's all sorts of options that you can look to use it with.

00:21:16:23 - 00:21:20:15
And yeah, for that reason I would say it is a very sustainable products

Speaker 1

00:21:21:12 - 00:21:24:16
Amazing, great it's going to have a big impact isn't it,

00:21:24:16 - 00:21:27:22
as more and more farmers turn towards it.

00:21:28:11 - 00:21:31:06
Ed, what would you add to that?

Speaker 2

00:21:31:14 - 00:21:33:20
I think also what I'd like to add as well is

00:21:33:20 - 00:21:37:15
we are looking with our own internal compliance team at getting an end

00:21:37:15 - 00:21:40:20
to waste status for this, you know, it does

00:21:41:08 - 00:21:44:14
does replace other bedding products directly.

00:21:44:14 - 00:21:47:20
And if we can achieve an end of life status,

00:21:47:20 - 00:21:50:23
it just makes the the process of selling it.

00:21:50:23 - 00:21:52:23
It gives us the opportunity to even export it.

00:21:52:23 - 00:21:56:11
And, you know, we're having conversations with, with people in Ireland as well.

00:21:56:19 - 00:21:59:17
And, you know, they're big in dairy, their big in poultry.

00:21:59:17 - 00:22:02:11
So they just that opens up markets for us all over the place.

Speaker 1

00:22:04:05 - 00:22:06:00
Yeah, incredible story.

00:22:06:00 - 00:22:09:23
Thank you very much, both of you, for sharing this with us.

00:22:10:04 - 00:22:13:22
And I hope as many people are as excited and is is intrigued

00:22:13:22 - 00:22:17:07
and inspired by this as I am,

00:22:17:07 - 00:22:19:20
we haven't got much more time, so I'm going to have to close,

00:22:19:20 - 00:22:22:11
but I really want to say thank you to you both.

00:22:22:23 - 00:22:27:12
I found that extremely interesting and I'm sure plenty of our viewers

00:22:27:19 - 00:22:31:20
and the future listeners of our podcast will find it interesting, too.

00:22:33:07 - 00:22:35:07
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00:22:35:07 - 00:22:38:20
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00:22:39:02 - 00:22:42:20
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00:22:43:21 - 00:22:46:17
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00:22:46:17 - 00:22:49:21
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00:22:50:07 - 00:22:53:06
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