title: Leaf protein concentrate from paunch grass and green waste: A technoeconomic analysis and lifecycle assessment

authors: Ng, Timothy Wei Choong

subjects: Paunch grass

abstract: The global supply of food and feed protein needs to double during the first half of the 21st century. At present, food and feed protein is produced by livestock and arable crop farming. Further expansion of this protein production model is unsustainable in many countries due to overallocated water resources, limited availability and accessibility of new farmlands, and the environmental impacts of widespread fertiliser and fossil fuel use in agriculture. Alternative sources of food and feed protein are therefore needed to meet growing demand. One potential source of protein is leaf protein concentrate (LPC) manufactured from negative value paunch grass (PG) and leafy green waste (GW). The chemical compositions PG and GW have therefore been determined for the first time in New Zealand. Their protein contents (15.2 to 16.2 DM%) are comparable to those of alfalfa and ryegrass, making them suitable LPC feedstocks. The optimal manufacturing method uses two passes through a screw press with intermediary maceration to extract the PG and GW leaf proteins into a liquor; the liquor is then acidified with hydrochloric acid and the protein coagulated by steam injection (85°C, 30 seconds), to achieve 45.9 to 62.0 mass percent protein recovery. The industrial-scale manufacture of leaf protein concentrate from these waste materials is technologically and financially viable when it is co-sited with a meat processing facility or rendering plant, and the fibre fraction is treated as a valuable co-product instead of a waste stream. The LPC has a crude protein content (~37 DM%) and essential amino acid profile that is comparable to other plant protein products used for animal feed. Its Global Warming Potential (2094 kg CO- e / M- LPC) is relatively high when compared with those of other animal feed protein sources; the Blue Water Footprint (39.3 m³ H₂O / MT LPC) is relatively low. Both impacts are within the range of protein sources already supplied to the animal feed industry. The fibre co-product has great potential; it could be used as a bulking agent for composting processes, a feedstock for anaerobic digestion, and a fuel for process heat. Further work in understanding the drying, extrusion, and palletisation properties of the LPC is needed for industrial-scale production and commercialisation.

text: Leaf protein concentrate from paunch grass and green waste: A technoeconomic analysis and lifecycle assessment The global supply of food and feed protein needs to double during the first half of the 21st century. At present, food and feed protein is produced by livestock and arable crop farming. Further expansion of this protein production model is unsustainable in many countries due to overallocated water resources, limited availability and accessibility of new farmlands, and the environmental impacts of widespread fertiliser and fossil fuel use in agriculture. Alternative sources of food and feed protein are therefore needed to meet growing demand. One potential source of protein is leaf protein concentrate (LPC) manufactured from negative value paunch grass (PG) and leafy green waste (GW). The chemical compositions PG and GW have therefore been determined for the first time in New Zealand. Their protein contents (15.2 to 16.2 DM%) are comparable to those of alfalfa and ryegrass, making them suitable LPC feedstocks. The optimal manufacturing method uses two passes through a screw press with intermediary maceration to extract the PG and GW leaf proteins into a liquor; the liquor is then acidified with hydrochloric acid and the protein coagulated by steam injection (85°C, 30 seconds), to achieve 45.9 to 62.0 mass percent protein recovery. The industrial-scale manufacture of leaf protein concentrate from these waste materials is technologically and financially viable when it is co-sited with a meat processing facility or rendering plant, and the fibre fraction is treated as a valuable co-product instead of a waste stream. The LPC has a crude protein content (~37 DM%) and essential amino acid profile that is comparable to other plant protein products used for animal feed. Its Global Warming Potential (2094 kg CO- e / M- LPC) is relatively high when compared with those of other animal feed protein sources; the Blue Water Footprint (39.3 m³ H₂O / MT LPC) is relatively low. Both impacts are within the range of protein sources already supplied to the animal feed industry. The fibre co-product has great potential; it could be used as a bulking agent for composting processes, a feedstock for anaerobic digestion, and a fuel for process heat. Further work in understanding the drying, extrusion, and palletisation properties of the LPC is needed for industrial-scale production and commercialisation.

year: 2022

title: Climate change, forest conservation and science: A case study of New Zealand, 1860s-1920

authors: Beattie, James John

subjects: New Zealand

abstract: To most of its European settlers, New Zealand was a land blessed by Providence. A temperate climate and year-round rainfall, easy availability of land and myriad work opportunities attracted many to the new colony. Climate and health figured prominently in migration considerations and many writers took delight in pointing out, as propagandist John Ward did to intending migrants in 1839, that in New Zealand: A never-failing moisture is dispersed over the country by the clouds which collect on the mountain-tops, without the occurrence of rainy seasons, beyond storms of a few days’ duration. This refreshing moisture, combined with the influence of the sea-breezes, renders the climate very favourable to the health, and development, of the human frame. And vegetation is, from the same cause, highly luxuriant, and the verdure almost perpetual.

text: Climate change, forest conservation and science: A case study of New Zealand, 1860s-1920 To most of its European settlers, New Zealand was a land blessed by Providence. A temperate climate and year-round rainfall, easy availability of land and myriad work opportunities attracted many to the new colony. Climate and health figured prominently in migration considerations and many writers took delight in pointing out, as propagandist John Ward did to intending migrants in 1839, that in New Zealand: A never-failing moisture is dispersed over the country by the clouds which collect on the mountain-tops, without the occurrence of rainy seasons, beyond storms of a few days’ duration. This refreshing moisture, combined with the influence of the sea-breezes, renders the climate very favourable to the health, and development, of the human frame. And vegetation is, from the same cause, highly luxuriant, and the verdure almost perpetual.

year: 2009

title: COVID-19 and blind spaces: Responding to digital (in)accessibility and social isolation during lockdown for blind, deafblind, low vision, and vision impaired persons in Aotearoa New Zealand

authors: Graham, Rebekah Sarah

abstract: In this chapter we, as Indigenous (Māori) and non-Indigenous (Pākehā) academics, practitioners, and disability advocates critically examine the experiences of people who are blind, deafblind, low vision and vision impaired (BLV) during the COVID-19 lockdown of Aotearoa New Zealand. We pay particular attention to the ways in which access (or lack thereof) to digital spaces facilitated experiences of social inclusion (and exclusion). Digital connectivity was heavily relied upon during lockdown in Aotearoa New Zealand to disseminate health information and to connect people socially. The use of digital technologies during lockdown extended the interpersonal space of the home beyond the physicality of the urban home people were confined to, drawing people together across the country and creating a sense of shared experience. However, these experiences were not shared equally across the citizenry. Conversations during lockdown with disability advocates and practitioners working with BLV persons identified that. For example, the government website on COVID19 was initially inaccessible for BLV persons and there were assumptions of digital accessibility and literacy within the domestic space of the home. Taken together, these exacerbated existing inequities for BLV persons, some of whom experience multiple domains of exclusion (for example, Indigenous BLV persons with reduced access to services and for whom English is their second language). Drawing on Lefebvre’s (1991) work on the dialectics of space and Lewin’s (1936/2013) construction of the life-space, we consider the interplay of space and experience with regards to the digital and physical space(s) available and inhabited during the shared social experience of lockdown. We discuss possibilities for co-creating socially inclusive (digital) spaces of belonging that reflect and refract life-space relational connections across social groups. Our reflections on the lockdown experience include opportunities post-pandemic for policy makers and practitioners to address digital accessibility inequities.

text: COVID-19 and blind spaces: Responding to digital (in)accessibility and social isolation during lockdown for blind, deafblind, low vision, and vision impaired persons in Aotearoa New Zealand In this chapter we, as Indigenous (Māori) and non-Indigenous (Pākehā) academics, practitioners, and disability advocates critically examine the experiences of people who are blind, deafblind, low vision and vision impaired (BLV) during the COVID-19 lockdown of Aotearoa New Zealand. We pay particular attention to the ways in which access (or lack thereof) to digital spaces facilitated experiences of social inclusion (and exclusion). Digital connectivity was heavily relied upon during lockdown in Aotearoa New Zealand to disseminate health information and to connect people socially. The use of digital technologies during lockdown extended the interpersonal space of the home beyond the physicality of the urban home people were confined to, drawing people together across the country and creating a sense of shared experience. However, these experiences were not shared equally across the citizenry. Conversations during lockdown with disability advocates and practitioners working with BLV persons identified that. For example, the government website on COVID19 was initially inaccessible for BLV persons and there were assumptions of digital accessibility and literacy within the domestic space of the home. Taken together, these exacerbated existing inequities for BLV persons, some of whom experience multiple domains of exclusion (for example, Indigenous BLV persons with reduced access to services and for whom English is their second language). Drawing on Lefebvre’s (1991) work on the dialectics of space and Lewin’s (1936/2013) construction of the life-space, we consider the interplay of space and experience with regards to the digital and physical space(s) available and inhabited during the shared social experience of lockdown. We discuss possibilities for co-creating socially inclusive (digital) spaces of belonging that reflect and refract life-space relational connections across social groups. Our reflections on the lockdown experience include opportunities post-pandemic for policy makers and practitioners to address digital accessibility inequities.

year: 2021