The determination to save and protect the planet earth is slowly being entrenched in the minds of the people. The immediate evidence can be witnessed in the palm oil mill effluent treatment that is being encouraged in all solvent extraction plants. There are some companies that have established the palm oil mill effluent (POME) treatment section to ensure that every raw effluent produced is handled and processed with care so that it becomes useful and less harmful to the environment. It is estimated that a ton of fresh fruit bunches are capable of producing 0.65 tons of all raw palm oil mill effluent (POME).

This statistics is an eye-opener in the sense that unless such quantities of POME are treated, they could contribute to further environmental pollution. The process of treating POME is a slightly complicated process that requires total understanding of the main processes that are involved. At first, POME is subjected to anaerobic digestion that takes two phases. Once these two phases have been successfully accomplished, it is taken through the extended aeration process. The anaerobic process is important in the sense that it destroys the pollutant in the POME while the extended aeration process seeks to ensure that the pollutant level does not exceed the Department of Environment (DOE) requirement.