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Organizations spanning a wide range of industries are faced with meeting continuously evolving environmental expectations, precipitated either by the Clean Water Act (CWA) or societal demand. Although largely written in its original form several decades ago, the Environmental Protection Agency’s CWA is the definitive standard for protecting water bodies across the United States and setting pollution control limits for wastewater.

As companies across the U.S. improve their wastewater treatment facilities to ensure they meet environmental regulations, find efficiencies, drive down costs and increase market share, they can all be byproducts of applying innovative wastewater management techniques.

Each facility’s wastewater characteristics vary based on the location and market sector in which it operates. As such, these characteristics affect wastewater treatment needs and must be taken into consideration when determining the optimal treatment method. State regulations must also be regarded to identify the appropriate design basis when building new or enhancing existing infrastructure.

Using modeling software to analyze alternatives, create “what if” scenarios and build contingency plans can support an organization in evaluating alternatives ranging from simple pH adjustment to complex complete treatment processes that allow for direct discharge. Identifying innovative, cost-effective techniques that treat wastewater efficiently and provide organizations with added benefits should be prioritized when developing a shortlist of alternatives.

Uncovering hidden energy sources in wastewater

Identifying cost-effective sources of energy to power operations is a priority for organizations. Fortunately, for those that produce significant wastewater, the wastewater itself can often be a hidden source of energy in the form of biogas.

High-strength organic streams can be treated anaerobically to generate energy for electricity or to fuel thermal processes such as boilers. Examples can often be found in food and beverage operations, including slaughterhouses and dairies, where process wastewater can be treated under anaerobic conditions.

High-strength process wastewater from food and beverage operations is typically treated using single vessel mesophilic anaerobic lagoon or tank digesters. Depending on the feed stock, alternative anaerobic digester configurations can maximize biogas production. One method is to convert existing mesophilic anaerobic digesters to a temperature-phased anaerobic digestion process.

In other applications, a manufacturer can commission the design and build of an electric generator fueled on the biogas produced by its operations, which can also provide significant hot water resources to meet heating requirements.

This wastewater management technique treats the wastewater while retaining valuable resources for reuse, supporting environmental sustainability and organizational profitability.

Identifying alternate pathways for wastewater

Manufacturers in the food industry have high organic process wastewater discharge to publicly-owned treatment works following onsite pretreatment. In some circumstances, manufacturers may reap rewards by finding alternate pathways for discharging wastewater characterized by high organic loads.

In the example of a cranberry producer that prepared for a sizeable expansion of its operation, it was determined that feeding their wastewater directly to the publicly-owned treatment works’ digester was more cost-efficient than mixing the waste with municipal wastewater. Diverting to the digester also produced biogas to be used to power the wastewater treatment facilities.

Many manufacturers in the food processing industry have historically used land application as their preferred method for disposing of process wastewater as it not only provides treatment of the process wastewater, but also provides needed nutrients for crop production and amending soil characteristics and structure. Process wastewater disposal via land application is typically restricted based on field and weather conditions and regulatory or seasonal restrictions. These restrictions may require manufacturers to store wastewater, which can impact production if storage is insufficient or lead to disgruntled neighbors if odors develop. Due to the challenge of finding land application sites, increasingly restrictive regulations and other potential issues, food manufacturers are considering alternatives for handling and treating their process wastewater. (责任编辑：Alice Lee)