Milestone for ILSA in Brazil
The Brazilian division of biotech company ILSA has said it will reach an important milestone in the course of the month of May.
Based in Arzignano in Italy, ILSA set up a division in Brazil in 2009. Twelve years on, it has said that, by the end of May, it will have transformed a total of 300,000 tonnes of waste from the Brazilian leather industry into fertiliser.
At a processing plant in Portão in Rio Grande do Sul, ILSA takes waste from tanneries and subjects it to thermal hydrolysis. The company claims to be the only operator in Latin America to carry out this process on an industrial scale.
This transforms the tanning waste into a type of gelatin that is rich in organic nutrients and carbon. ILSA then subjects the gelatin to a drying process to produce the fertiliser.
It has calculated that the fertiliser it has produced in Brazil since 2009 is enough to fertilise crops on 500,000 hectares of farmland. Moreover, the company says the fertilisers that result from tanning waste have “unique characteristics”, including high levels of nitrogen and carbon, which aid the health of plants and the soil.
