Firm unveils anti-melamine device
- Source: Global Times
- [03:14 March 17 2010]
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By An Baijie
A technology company in Xiamen, Fujian Province recently claimed that it developed a membrane that could remove dangerous melamine from tainted milk powder and save the country hundreds of millions of yuan.
Lan Weiguang, the board chairman of Suntar Technology, said that tainted milk powder could be recycled and reused as fodder addictives after the melamine is filtered out with the membrane invented by his company, China Economics Weekly reported Tuesday.
"The effective ingredients in milk are protein, vitamin, lactose, and some other macromolecules, which could be effectively preserved by the membrane, while the melamine molecule is smaller and could be filtered away," Lan said.
Lan added that incinerating tainted milk powders could impose great pressure on the environment, and will also waste time and money.
The technology could save the country about 600 million yuan ($87 million) if it is adopted to recycle the tainted milk powder, said Fang Fulin, the executive manager of Suntar, according to the report.
Qiu Xiaohong, the office director of Suntar, told the Global Times that the membrane technology was tested by several provincial quality and supervision organs and proved to be effective.
Qiu refused to tell which provincial organs tested the membrane because it is "inconvenient to say."
The claim could not be verified independently Tuesday.
Qiu hopes the government could allow enterprises to recycle melamine-tainted milk powder for fodder addictive production.
However, it may be a little bit too late.
The National Food Safety Rectification Office said Monday that almost all of the 25,100 tons of defective milk powder seized during an investigation of tainted milk powder were incinerated and buried.
The office said none of the defective milk powder had been found to re-enter the market, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
Only a small amount of tainted milk powder was kept for specific reasons such as for evidence, the report said.
Officials launched a campaign early last month after the tainted milk power seized during the 2008 scandal resurfaced in some dairy products.
Several milk powder brands, such as Shanghai Panda Dairy, and Shaanxi Jinqiao Dairy, reused melamine-tainted milk powder, the local supervision departments said late last year. Some managers were detained.
The melamine tainted milk powder, produced chiefly by the Hebei-based Sanlu dairy group, killed at least six babies and left more than 300,000 sick in 2008.
The president of Sanlu was sentenced to death with a two-year respite last year.
