ATD Solves the Manure Disposal Problem! ATD Solves the Manure Disposal Problem!

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1 ATD Solves the Manure Disposal Problem! Introduction. Welcome. Is manure disposal a problem? ATD has solved that problem by simply taking the water out and using it again to feed the pigs. Everything else goes into a fertilizer pellet that can be sold. That simple process generates this list of benefits and returns your investment. My name is Victor Van Slyke and I am the President of ATD Waste Systems. Today I would like to describe the benefits our process brings to the Industry as well as those provided to overall society in the area of environmental and health benefits. I will follow that with a description of our process and how those benefits are achieved. You will see how some production costs you may have accepted in the past can now be brought under control and reduced. ATD has developed a hog manure recovery system that eliminates environmental concerns, and corrects nutrient balance problems. It eliminates manure storage, reduces transportation costs for feed and animals and collects more nutrients to produce an organic based fertilizer and clean drinking water. Overall, the system improves profitability. The system is patent pending and the only one of its kind in the world. I will attempt to answer the obvious questions that arise with the introduction of a brand new product. 1. How much does it cost? The ATD system is built to handle the volume of manure you produce every day. I will estimate the North American cost based on the volumes you submit to us. 2. Is the technology proven? Each step in our process has been tested either in the field or in the laboratory. All equipment is purchased from reputable suppliers under warranty. ATD does not manufacture equipment. Our job is to bring them together with this introduction in China. 3. Will it make me more money? Yes, but it will mean change. Industry Benefits: 1. We allow expansion without need for adjacent acreage for manure disposal 2. We allow integration of feed mill, packinghouse and swine operations adjacent to labour pools and consumer markets. 3. We increase bio-security by enclosing all services in one area and eliminating truck entry, a major source of disease transportation. Grain will be delivered to

2 the feed mill on the perimeter and transferred by truck within the secured area. Animals will be moved between barns within the secured area and delivered to a packinghouse at the perimeter. Pork and by-products will be delivered through the perimeter at the packinghouse to trucks that never enter the secure area. As a good neighbour that uses less water, makes less smell and converts manure into a dry pellet the door is opened to larger self-sustainable hog operations that can not only reduce transportation costs of feed and animals but eliminate incoming vehicular traffic. By increasing herd size, including the feed mill, packing plant and fertilizer plant on the same site and possibly providing full time veterinary coverage the costs of production will be reduced. Staff will be washed on the way in and out and will be sent home with the instructions not to raise a family hog. Everything else is delivered to the fence and taken from the fence. 4. We produce additional jobs for agricultural school graduates - working with installation engineers or providing on-going support and operation of the farm. 5. We create add on revenue from by-product fertilizer and greenhouse gas credits 6. We stabilize cash flow as new revenue is counter-cyclical to pork prices. 7. We reduce herd medications and shortens the time to market. Now, the Environmental and Health Benefits: 1. 50% reduced water consumption 2. Reduced odours 3. Reduced greenhouse gases 4. Reduced need for chemical fertilizers 5. Increased capture of nutrients and solids 6. Improved distribution of nutrients 7. Controlled burning of local biomass improves air quality 8. Improved air quality in the barns improves health of animals, staff and nearby residents 9. Improved air reduces lung lesions and medications in the herd 10. Improved air improves feed consumption and conversion 2

3 11. Reduced insect and rodent sources of disease and anti-biotic resistance 12. Reduced bio-security risks if used in large-scale vertical integration with feed mills and packing plants. System background. Our initial target was to create a system that did not discharge to the environment. After all, if we were successful there would be no need for environmental regulations and life would be simpler. The challenge was to recycle the water and we have succeeded. All of the benefits are by-products of that one idea. We recognized that we had to develop an environmentally sustainable and economically viable system. The environmental issues would be solved by not discharging to the environment. The drive to economic viability was more troublesome. While odour reduction was often presented as a large problem we found that its elimination, by itself, would not provide the returns we needed. So, we developed an integrated approach that, while more costly, provided the investment returns that make it viable. We wanted to install the system on any farm, in any climate and it had to be easy for an operator to use. That meant finding processes and equipment used in other industries so we could utilize their experience to make things easy to operate. We tied them together in an operating system that can prompt an operator and be remotely monitored by ATD to keep it running efficiently. We had to buy what we needed off the shelf from suppliers that could support us anywhere in the world and make things easy to repair. Lastly, because of the weather and a host of other reasons, we wanted to avoid anaerobic treatment. The system makes a dry fertilizer and clean water and it works because it separates liquids and solids immediately, taking them both straight from the barn for daily processing. We will eliminate the lagoon, long term storage and slurry disposal while reducing water consumption by over 50% By eliminating the mingling of liquids and solids we reduce odours and greenhouse gases significantly. We have obtained some patents and are patent pending on more. We have been assisted along the way by the University of British Columbia, Chemical Engineering Dept., Hipp-Anvil Engineering Ltd. and members of their staffs along with suppliers and industry advisors. Let s move on to a topic close to our hearts - Return on Investment. After all, none of those benefits I have just outlined will be possible if we don t invest and if we don t recover that investment over time. The ATD system is an investment that pays for itself many times over. It recovers its investment in 3 to 5 years depending on volume and the market for the fertilizer by-product. 3

4 The return that is not priced in those calculations is the opportunity for larger hog operations that can be located (because of their lack of odours and ease of manure disposal) close to consumers, labour, feed supplies, packing and rendering facilities to further reduce production costs. The ATD system will be best utilized in large hog operations. An example would be 5,000 sows farrow to finish, or 50,000 places with a feed mill, fertilizer plant and packing facilities on unproductive land close to a city on one bio-secure site. We had to get an idea of an operator s current costs so that a comparison to our system could be made. There were some surprises along the way, e.g., nitrogen losses in long term storage was one, water consumption was another and new phosphorus rules and expansion were creating nutrient imbalance challenges for some. These costs were not being recognized in farm accounting systems. We had to accept that environmental benefits to society would be in our costs but not in our profits. However, we feel that the market will provide a return if we prove the benefits are there. Now let s go back to those benefits and I will show how the system makes them possible: 50% reduced water consumption: Liquids are collected on the in-barn conveyors and sent directly to the fertilizer plant for treatment. We will take out any solids that come along for the ride, convert any ammonia to ammonium sulphate, then reduce the remainder of nutrients by membrane separation. The filtrate will then be exposed to Ultra Violet radiation to exclude the possibility of pathogens being circulated on the farm. We will lose some water in the pellets as well as by evaporation in drying the solids. Some of that will be recovered by condensation but the rest will escape to the atmosphere after passing through an all-weather bio-filter. We estimate that this should reduce new water consumption by 50%. Reduced odours: There are two major components in the odours people complain about, ammonia and the by-products of anaerobic activity. The ATD solution is to stop odour production before it begins. Ammonia is caused by enzymes produced by bacteria in faeces attacking urea in the urine. By using conveyors at rest we separate the faeces and their bacteria from the urine in the barn and move the urine out immediately. This allows the faeces to dry aerobically until the end of the day when the conveyor belt is scraped clean, drastically reducing ammonia production and preserving urea. All manure is treated within 24 hours. Low ammonia means: 4

5 Improved health for the animals and staff (and possibly neighbours). Lower vet bills. Lung lesions reduced or eliminated. Better feed conversion and earlier to market - some say as much as three days. The other major components of the odour are produced by anaerobic activity. Prompt removal and treatment just doesn t allow that to happen. There will be no hydrogen sulfide safety concerns. We aren t perfect! Barn smells will continue to come from evaporation on the floor, the animals themselves and we still discharge to the air. We also discharge moist air from the dryer which is directed to our only biological treatment facility - an all-weather biofilter. Reduced greenhouse gases: Anaerobic activity in long term storage produces methane and carbon dioxide - the two greenhouse gases that we want to reduce. These gases are produced in the absence of oxygen and that means that the manure has been in storage for several hours. We don t let that happen. We treat the manure daily - within hours. Offset credits will have value in time and these belong to the owner of the manure - you. Reduced need for chemical fertilizers: ATD fertilizer pellets will be a new source of fertilizer that will replace chemicals. Because they are new they will have to be tested to determine the best dosage for crops and soil conditions. We are confident that those tests will show that the same crops will be produced with less of our fertilizer. Increased capture of nutrients and solids: All solids will be captured and we will use some of them or alternatively some other locally available bio-mass as fuel for drying. The nutrients will be removed from the water and added back to the solids prior to pelleting. Thus retaining the benefits of trace nutrients as well. 5

6 Improved distribution of nutrients: As you know, the emptying of lagoons requires work to bring the solids up from the bottom and mix with the liquids to allow spreading on the fields. The nitrogen and phosphorus levels are changing by the minute which means nutrition is uneven. Our pellet will enable farmers to apply nutrition in a measured and consistent basis. Controlled burning of local biomass improves air quality: Our burner is designed for bio-mass fuels and will therefore convert the fuel to heat with the minimum discharge through the smokestack. Improved air quality in the barns improves health of animals, staff and nearby residents: By collecting the urine quickly and removing it from the barn we are not allowing the bacteria in the faeces access to the urea. This cuts off the production of ammonia from that source. There is still some free ammonia in the urine but with rapid transport from the barn there will be less time for it to be released. This will reduce lung problems for animals and staff and at the same time reduce neighbors complaints. Improved air quality reduces lung lesions and medications in the herd: No explanation needed here. Hogs get most of their troubles through their noses and we can reduce the challenge of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. Improved air quality improves feed consumption and conversion: Improved lung function makes a happier hog. Reduced insect and rodent sources of disease: Ease of cleaning the pens, control over access to feed and filters on incoming air will reduce this threat. 6

7 The System: Using the ATD conveyor system in the barns the urine and feces are separated quickly and efficiently with the liquids flowing down the conveyor to leave the barn and the solids left to dry until the following day when the belt is rotated and scraped clean. The liquids are treated to remove the ammonia and convert it to ammonium sulfate and filtered to concentrate the remaining dissolved solids and leave water that will then be sterilized again by ultra violet radiation before being returned to the barns as drinking water. The feces along with the lime sludge created in the ammonia removal process, the ammonium sulfate itself, and the condensed dissolved solids; burner ash and supplements to re-balance the fertilizer analysis to customer specifications are dried and converted to fertilizer pellets. Drying energy can be the feces themselves. Our raw materials are lime, sulfuric acid and some polymers to assist settling. All of which are part of the fertilizer pellet. Alternatively we can accept the manure as slurry from the barns or an anaerobic digester.. Business Opportunity ATD Waste Systems is in the process of identifying a partner in China. We expect that you will wish to be the first in the world to benefit from the introduction of our new technology and from the public relations that will follow. There is a need for a local after-sales service agent as well. Our remote monitoring system will allow ATD and the agent to keep the system running at a high level of efficiency and cope with replacement part sourcing, training of new staff and consulting on changes in the operation of the farm. Any organization interested in this business opportunity can contact us as shown below: Contact information: ATD Waste Systems Inc West 24th Ave., Vancouver, BC Canada V6L 1R7 Tel: Fax: cleanfarm@hogmanure.com Web: 7