초록
Pakistan being the 6$^{th}$ largest sugar producer has over 75 sugar mills with annual production capacity of about 2.4 million tons during 1996-97. The contribution of Sindh with 27 sugar mills is recorded over 50% of the total sugar production. The majority of the mills in Pakistan use the Defecation-Remelt-Phosphitation (DRP; 24 mills), Defecation-Remelt-Carbonation (DRC; 21 mills) and Defecation-Remelt Carbonation and Sulphitation (DRCS; 11 mills) process. Seven of the 75 sugar mills in Pakistan also produce industrial alcohol from molasses, a by- product of sugar manufacturing process. These sugar industries also produce fly ash, which have been found to contain unburned carbon and reach as far as four-kilo meter area with the wind direction, threatening the community health of people living around, besides posing other aesthetic problems. The untreated wastewater, in many cases, finds its way to open surface drains causing serious threat to livestock, flora and fauna. One study showed that fly ash emitted from the chimneys contain particle size ranging from 38 ${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$ to 1000 ${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$. About 50 per cent of each fly ash samples were above 300 ${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$ in size and were mostly unburned Carbon particles, which produced 85% weight loss on burning in air atmosphere at 1000${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$. This fly ash (mostly carbon) was the main cause of many health and aesthetic problems in the sugar mill vicinity. The environmental challenge for the local sugar mills is associated with liquid waste gaseous emission and solid waste. This paper discusses various waste recycling technologies and practices in sugar industries of Pakistan. The application of EM technology and Biogas technology has proved very successful in reusing the sugar industry wastewater and mud, which otherwise were going waste.