Solid waste management in rice processing industries

Nowadays, the environmental dimension is increasingly receiving more and more importance in organizations and society actions. Today, products are frequently designed, produced, marketed and consumed, taking into account the impact produced by each process in the rice crop production chain. A major concern in this sector is with the solid waste produced by the rice processing industry. Thus, this work aims at identifying the solid waste produced at rice processing agroindustry and, to come up with improvement possibilities for the destination of this solid waste. This research was carried out at a rice processing agroindustry located at the city of Sao Sepe/RS from April to June 2010. The mapping process adopted follows a structured observation. Through this mapping it was possible to identify twenty and one different types of wastes resulting from the rice processing, with ash and rice husk being the ones observed in greater quantity. The diagnose we performed allows the industry to better know its own operation and then, propose improvements and, to perform a periodic review of the solid wastes produced during the production process. Finally, we suggested some strategies for the waste for redirecting the waste minimizing the environmental problems.