Giovanni Cassese's designed a system built by Pieralisi that might just
be the first completely environmentally sustainable olive mill.
Harvest just started in Italy and while olive mills are working
almost at full capacity we met the creator of an innovative method of
production that not only has zero environmental impact but also produces
electric and thermal energy.
“This system has reached the highest
level of innovation for the disposal of wastewater,” said Giovanni
Cassese, who gained experience in the family mill at Villa Castelli,
in the province of Brindisi, in Apulia. “A very simple agri-food
process became a zero-impact practice to produce high-quality extra
virgin olive oil and generate power.”
Cassese conceived adjustments to the mode of operation of a mill and submitted them to the milling technology company Pieralisi, which implemented the new setup in a plant that can be considered the first completely environmentally sustainable olive mill.
“As we know, even the most innovative three-phase system involves a
water consumption that ranges from 70 to 110 percent, while the
two-phase system generates very reduced water consumption but the waste
needs to be further processed to be reusable in some way or digested,”
he explained. “After extraction with our mill which employs the DMF
(multi-functional decanter) technology, we obtain extra virgin olive oil
and two byproducts or, as I call them, ‘differentiated productions’ —
the virgin olive pomace with humidity content around 55 percent, that is
very well suited to the extraction of olive pit, and the olive pâté.”
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