Commitment to the Environment

Commitment to the environment is a social responsibility that the corn refining industry takes seriously.

Corn Production

Advances in environmentally-beneficial practices in the corn refining industry start at the corn production stage. Farmers have initiated a green revolution by using new technologies and innovative practices that allow them to produce more corn with less energy and fewer resources. They have adopted sound practices in managing the land, reduced pesticide and fertilizer use, improved soil structure, and dramatically reduced topsoil erosion.

Increasing Efficiency in Plant Operations

Resource-efficiency helps reduce the industry’s environmental impact and provides financial incentives. Many corn refining companies have established notable sustainability goals for reduction of energy and water consumption, greenhouse gas and other emissions, as well as liquid and solid waste.

Corn refiners are leaders in waste minimization and are currently able to use approximately 99 percent of the corn kernel in their products. Much of what is collected in air pollution control and water pollution control equipment is recycled into product streams. Cogeneration energy production systems provide electricity and heat for process operations. These systems are more efficient than separate generation of electricity and heat, resulting in reductions in emissions and energy required to run the plant. Many of the facilities generate biogas from the responsible treatment of waste products that is captured and used to replace natural gas in animal feed dryers.

Corn refiners have had a century to refine, improve, and optimize ways to use the water necessary for the corn refining process. From a processing aid to a cooling mechanism, water serves a vital role in the manufacture of the many ingredients derived from the corn refining process. As a result, multiple re-use of water is essential and is the primary means the industry uses to protect this valuable resource. In some corn refining processes, water is re-used up to 10 times.

Products Provide Value and Reduce Impact

Starch is one of the paper industry’s most important ingredients and more than 85 percent of starch used in the U.S. paper making process is corn starch. Starch is added to replace the natural binding agents the wood pulp loses during processing.

Starch is even more important in making recycled paper products. Recycled fiber is weak and needs the bonding strength that cationic starch provides. Not only does the ability to transform more recycled content into quality papers benefit the environment, the starch increases fiber retention, so the end product performs better; and the manufacturing process is cleaner and more efficient.

Highly specialized starches also can be used by other industries as effective and environmentally superior alternatives to synthetic agents in wastewater treatment.

Recent advances in starch technology show promise in the area of adhesives because they require less water and subsequently less time and energy to dry than more traditional methods. More environmentally-friendly adhesives from starch may be able to replace current petroleum-based acetates and alcohols used to help laminate graphics onto cardboard and latexes used as binders in paper coatings.

Biodegradable and energy efficient caps, cups, paper coatings, fabrics, carpeting, and agricultural mulch films are all possible today because of three types of corn-based polymers. Corn-based plastics can be formed on traditional plastic equipment into bottles, containers, trays, and other packaging.

These products are compostable and play a critical role in the diversion of food scraps from landfills to composting facilities and further reduce greenhouse gas production. Production of these corn-based polymers uses up to 68 percent less fossil fuel than comparable traditional plastics manufacturing and generates up to 55 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

Corn-based products further enable new materials, such as fiber, to be developed from renewable feedstocks that use less energy. The materials have become a superb choice for fabrics and carpeting, since they have excellent stretch, stain resistance, resilience, and hold color well.

Industry/Government Collaboration

Corn refiners have long been proponents of and leaders in environmental responsibility through not only the use of energy efficient technologies and product development, but also conscientious compliance with environmental regulations. In perhaps the first-ever industry-led cooperative effort of its kind, CRA worked successfully with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop a more accurate way to measure volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions from corn wet milling facilities.

Corn refiners/wet corn milling companies also participate in Energy Star®, a joint program of the U.S. EPA and the U.S. Department of Energy. All members of CRA participate in this innovative program.