Three Commercial Products Recycled From Various Wastes That Makes Money – Household and industrial pest businessman Gonzalo “Jun” Catan makes money from his commercial products recycled from various wastes. This businessman inventor has recycled waste products and turned it into gold. Foremost is the activated carbon, followed by the green charcoal and vermicompost organic fertilizer.
Activated Carbon
Activated carbon has many industrial uses like purifying water supplies, softdrinks and many more. He makes activated carbon out of coconut shell. He produces 4.5 tons of activated carbon a day that sells at P72,000 per ton. Even if producing activated carbon is costly because it consumes more fuel. Jun Catan has reduced the cost of fuel by using his green charcoal instead of bunker fuel in running his boiler.
Green Charcoal
Green charcoal can be used as fuel that produces higher heat than the ordinary wood charcoal. It is made of grass and other biomass like water hyacinth, tree leaves and many more. Aside from being cheaper, green charcoal is more environment-friendly because unlike bunker fuel, it does not emit a lot of carbon dioxide. Green charcoal is much more efficient because it has a heating power of 59,000 BTU compared to 29,000 BTU of LPG and 18,000 BTU of bunker fuel.
Green charcoal is much cheaper to use then LPG. This is the reason many uses it in boiling water used in dressing chicken or some cooking at home.
Vermicompost
Vermicompost is a potent organic fertilizer produced by earthworms that feed on the same farm wastes which Jun Catan uses in making green charcoal. Producing organic fertilizer via vermiculture or the use of earthworms to convert waste materials into plant food. This is a timely project with the soaring prices of chemical fertilizers.
He formulated feed for his earthworms using various raw materials that are available, including spent tea leaves form local tea factory (eight tons a day), grasses, rice straw, water hyacinth, buko wastes and others. These are shredded, inoculated with beneficial microorganisms and enzymes and then form into vermilogs.
In this project, Jun Catan produces 4 to 5 tons of organic fertilizer. And compared to P25 per kilo in Metro Manila, he is selling his organic fertilizer at around P7 per kilo, pick up from the factory.