1. Introduction

1.1. Ongoing work in Pisco - general information only

1.2. Project funded by the usaid peru office

1.3. Perú landings and estimated discharge since 1956

1.4. The major key to pollution prevention is raw material quality

 

The title of this presentation suggests that seafood processing will be the main topic but as you can see from Figure 1, fishmeal is the dominant industry in the seafood area in Perú and will be the subject of this presentation. Pollution prevention in other segments of the seafood industry parallel those in the fishmeal industry. In fact, if you process seafood for edible use you almost always will produce solid wastes which must be either converted to fishmeal or handled in some other manner. Waste waters generated in the edible sector of the industry, although probably in lesser volumes will still have many of the same characteristics as those generated in fishmeal plants. Therefore, the technology can be transferred. We will cover some aspects of handling fish and shellfish wastes other than fishmeal. These other processes are inexpensive to set up but might require a heavy commitment to market development.

In order to give you some idea of the magnitude of the problem and the potential for increased revenues, we have estimated that between 1950 and 1994 the Peruvian fishmeal industry has landed 199 million metric tons (mmt) of fish (anchovy and sardine). At a conversion of 6:1 fish to fishmeal, that converts into 33.3 mmt of fishmeal. If we use an 11 year average CIF Hamburg price US$431 for fishmeal less US$60/ton for freight, we arrive at a figure of US$371/mt or US$12.35 billion (thousand million) for the value of the fishmeal produced over that period of time. Based on the average losses that we have found in Pisco in only the pumpwater, we have estimated that potentially about 6.85 mmt of fishmeal were lost over that period. At the average fishmeal price this works out to US$2.54 billion (thousand million) or about 20.6% of the fishmeal produced (Figure 2). We understand that the fishmeal industry has evolved over this time period, we realize that average numbers may not be the best way to evaluate the situation and that every factory is different. We are saying that even if we reduce the numbers by a factor of 100 in our calculations, the figure is still very large and presents some unique opportunities to the industry for enhancing yields. We will be going into the details on how we arrived at these figures and what steps are needed to evaluate each facility during today's presentation.

The major key to pollution prevention in the fishmeal industry is the quality of the raw material (Figure 3). Raw fish quality affects every stage of the process from storage on the vessel through evaporation of the stickwater. As soon as the fish are captured they begin to deteriorate and you start to lose yield on the vessel. By the time the catch is processed, you have not only lost valuable product but the quality of what you have produced is reduced. Yield loss and lower quality equate to reduced value for the products produced and higher production costs. Lower yields and reduced quality make you less competitive in a market that is moving towards prime and super prime fishmeals.