A NOVEL WAY OF TREATING EGGSHELL WASTES

An excerpt from 1998 Proceedings of the Midwest Poultry Federation Convention

Each day approximately 1370 tons of eggshell wastes are being produced by the egg-breaking and egg-drying plants in the USA. Disposal of eggshell wastes has always been a concern for the industry since they discard most of these wastes without further processing. Eggshell wastes are frequently discharged to private or public dump sites, spread on fields as lime fertilizer, or served as a calcium source for laying rations. However, these practices face problems like closing of dump sites, increasing emphasis on the types and amount of wastes allowed to be disposed in city dumps by the Environmental Protection Agency, generating off-odor, polluting surround plants, and rising disposal costs. Hence, ways of solving the eggshell wastes disposal problem is to transform the egg shell wastes into a value-added product – degradable plastic from eggshell membrane proteins (EMP).

Production of degradable plastic from the food waste stream solves the eggshell wastes disposal problems while producing a value-added product. Potential usages of EMP-plastic are making food and non-food packaging materials, plastic utensils (knives, forks, spoons, plates), forming materials for wound closure (sutures, clips, staples, etc.), synthesizing prosthetic implants, forming controlled release devices both in the medical area (capsules for drugs, hormones, contraceptives, insulin, etc.) and agricultural area (encapsulating fertilizers and/or pesticides for controlled release), and making sausage casings. Hence, the EMP-plastic, depending on its characteristics, has a big potential market in the food, non-food, and pharmaceutical industry.