ODOR CONTROL IN THE TREATMENT OF SUGAR CANE WASTE
WITH HYDROGEN PEROXIDE
Prayut Pubbakasikor, Graduate Student
Nathan C. Burbank, Jr., Professor
School of Public Health
University of Hawaii
Honolulu, Hawaii 96822
INTRODUCTION
Sugar is the third largest industry in Hawaii in terms of dollar income.   We often say,
if you meet eight people in Hawaii it is a 100% certainty that one of the eight is dependent on sugar for his livelihood.   Through good times and bad, sugar has kept the people
of this idyllic land happy, healthy, and well-fed.   It has brought to the United States a
cross section of the Orient that is unique and gives Hawaii the mystique of Aloha which
supports tourism, the number two source of income for the islands.
Years previous to the concept of industrial waste treatment in our land, the sugar mills
of Hawaii were treating their wastes, cleaning the cane wash wastewater, and recovering
the soil for recycling to those fields used in the production of seed cane.
Many studies of the wastes from the cane sugar mills have been made.   Most notable
are the recent study of Berm for the Environmental Protection Agency and that of
Kumagai, Honke et al. for the Hawaii Commerical and Development Company [ 1 ].
The industry in Hawaii has consistently recognized its problems and has moved forward
in a positive manner to correct them.   Two major steps have been the development of an
above ground cane cutter to solve the problem of dirt at its source by simple elimination,
and the development of the dry cleaner using air instead of water to rid the cane of dirt
attached to its roots.
The first of these, the cane cutter, is still undergoing trials and further development.
The second, the dry cleaner, is now in its third year of trials.   As is so often the case, the
fond hopes and high goals which we set  are very difficult to attain.
Faced with increasingly strict standards of discharge to receiving bodies of water,
the industry has looked toward complete recycling within the plant and in failing that
goal, to recycling wastewater to the land.
The immediate problem at hand was the solution of the treatment of cane mill waste
prior to recycling to the land, and the cause of the problem-odor.   To us the smell of
molasses is acceptable; however, to a neighbor who doesn't depend on sugar for a livelihood, it somehow tires his olfactory organs and senses until he complains—and then comes
action.   This report will relate the action that followed such a complaint.
Odor has always been a subjective problem.   Each and every human has in the nasal
cavity a 6-sq cm area of yellow-brown membrane where the olfactory nerve cell fibers are
embedded in mucous-covered epithelium cellular structure.   Volatile materials in water or
the atmosphere are drawn here, dissolve in the mucous, react on specific receptor sites
(protein molecules embedded in the lipid double layer of olfactory cell membranes) and
initiate reactions which stimulate the sensory impulses. The keenness of these organs varies
and we find people who have no sense of smell—anosmic individuals.   Still others find
that their sense of smell deteriorates with advanced age and still others find that their
sense of smell varies with their physical condition.   However, if people can smell they can
complain about odors.
Ten years ago we had it easy—there were six primary odors:   "flowery," "putrid,"
"burnt," "fruity," "spicy" and "resinous." The true method of stimulation was unknown.
However, in the ten years which have followed, we have arrived at a stereochemical theory
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