Beverage Manufacturer to Cut Disposal Cost
THE PROBLEM
A Pennsylvania general contractor with much experience within the beverage industry, saw that water utilization at a major food and beverage manufacturer’s facilities would benefit from an integrated approach to minimizing water consumption, while simultaneously optimizing boiler and cooling water treatment issues. By adopting such an approach, the contractor planned to offer their client an optimized system that would—with a single contract—achieve these objectives. The major concerns for the client were (1) the expense of the high BOD surcharges encountered and (2) the liability concern associated with hauling off-spec product for disposal off site.
THE APPLICATION DETAILS
The client paid BOD surcharges of $370,000 a year, with expectations that they would see an increase of 25-50% in the following year due to (1) higher rate charges by the local POTW (publicly owned treatment works) and (2) increased BOD loading from the addition of a new production line that would produce higher BOD juice products than any of the existing three lines. The client’s building maintenance contractor was planning to purchase a Samsco WasteSaverä unit to evaporate the high BOD juice from the damaged packages and off-spec product. This high BOD juice currently is being hauled to a nearby pig farm as an interim measure. This disposal will reduce the high BOD surcharges and the pressure from the local POTW, which has indicated their inability to handle the client’s volume of high BOD being discharged now. In the first three (3) months of the contract this amounted to 99,000 gallons
The general contractor, upon entering the scene, offered to determine the client’s real, total costs (by evaluating replacement water cost, projected sewer surcharges, etc.). Based on their experience and expertise, they urged initiation of a complete program dealing with water treatment and recovery for reuse (since the two are closely related). The recycling method chosen by the contractor would, of course, directly impact the treatment approach and—more significantly—its cost. Upon exploration of available technologies, the general contractor concluded that evaporation would be the best way to provide the vital link between the client’s appropriate treatment and his successful recovery of water.
Concept: The contractor set out to develop a collection system to recover the backwash waters from the multimedia, vsep ultra filters, and carbon filters (depending on turbidity) for reuse as makeup water in the boiler and cooling tower systems. There would also be a collection system for all four (4) production lines to evaporate flavor changes, capper, and rinse valve wastewater. The evaporator system would handle waste from damaged packages and from off-spec product mixes. Distilled water from the evaporator will be reused as boiler and cooling tower make-up and will be sent to the same recovery tank as the filter backwash. Concentrated sugar solution will be sold as either a by-product for animal feed or as stock for ethanol manufacturing.
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