BSI Has Been Addressing Ash Issues

And while B.S.I. sugar factory is addressing the New River crisis, one community near the factory has complained in the past about air pollution. Back in 2019, the community of Chan Pine Ridge made headlines following reports of ashes emitted from the factory’s boilers were making them sick. We asked the Vice President for International Relations at A.S.R./B.S.I. for an update on this matter.

Mac McLachlan, VP, International Relations, A.S.R./B.S.I

Mac McLachlan

“Part of our environmental compliance plan is to ensure that participant matter that is coming out of those chimneys fit within regulation. We have had a number of issues with the boilers for years, and there are a lot of reasons for that. A lot of it is getting moisture in the boilers and it erodes the system in place to control that emission. We took a big decision that we were going to completely change out those emission systems in the boiler. It is a big, big project, another ten million dollars project. In this off crop, we have installed a completely different system in one of the boilers. The next off crop we will do the same in the other boiler. That is going to reduce dramatically the participate matter. But, addressing the issue of Chan Pine Ridge, we have always been conscientious about meeting targets, particular those that have an impact on the environment. And as a result of that, we have done a number of studies on the real impact of Belcogen on the communities. As a part of the due diligence we did for IDB lending here, was to do that. We have done air flow monitors. We have always been well within the regulated limits of those areas. I empathize with Chan Pine Ridge and other areas that do, and I have seen the ash. But to be honest, the emission project won’t eradicate the problem, because that ash is coming from a lot of different sources. We have done some studies and analysis to check what that ash is, and it doesn’t have the components that you would expect coming from a high pressure boiler we have here.”