Here's another example that I ran into in Brazil, and ended up making and selling a business out of.
Whey, the by-product of dairy manufacturing, is most cheaply disposed of by feeding to pigs. The excess the pigs can't eat is supposed to be safely disposed of, but this is often deemed too costly, and it ends up in the river. A bribe to the right official will be cheaper anyway.
So I started to buy the stuff, for pennies per decalitre. Dairies didn't have to bribe officials anymore, and the river is spared. My refrigerated truck then brought this enormous amount of whey to my nanofiltration pump (setup with the help of a local chemical engineer), where we split it into Whey Protein Isolate, which is the powder bodybuilders drink. I then became a local supplier for the (at the time) only South American company that produced and marketed protein powders in Brazil, sold my share of the business, and came home a slightly wealthier man.
Every stage of this was a nightmare. The uses of whey have been well documented in the literature since the 1920's, and the equipment is cheap. In engineering terms, it's a completely solved problem. But the bureaucracy....
I remember two dairy brands in Brazil doing the same, a decade or so ago. However the whey+juice mix was more expensive than plain fruit juice, and both advertised it as a "fitness alternative", so you barely see it any more.
You just need to imagine that for every step of the way (say manufacturing, packaging and transport) there's a bribe (not necessarily to avoid a justified fine) for whatever official was supposed to take care of it. Corruption in South America is pretty much a way of life
No details. It is illegal for Canadian citizens to bribe workers of foreign governments. So, of course, I was able to do everything without ever exchanging money with a foreign official. But, if one were in a position to do so, I imagine things would have proceeded in a much more efficient way.
Whey, the by-product of dairy manufacturing, is most cheaply disposed of by feeding to pigs. The excess the pigs can't eat is supposed to be safely disposed of, but this is often deemed too costly, and it ends up in the river. A bribe to the right official will be cheaper anyway.
So I started to buy the stuff, for pennies per decalitre. Dairies didn't have to bribe officials anymore, and the river is spared. My refrigerated truck then brought this enormous amount of whey to my nanofiltration pump (setup with the help of a local chemical engineer), where we split it into Whey Protein Isolate, which is the powder bodybuilders drink. I then became a local supplier for the (at the time) only South American company that produced and marketed protein powders in Brazil, sold my share of the business, and came home a slightly wealthier man.
Every stage of this was a nightmare. The uses of whey have been well documented in the literature since the 1920's, and the equipment is cheap. In engineering terms, it's a completely solved problem. But the bureaucracy....