The Food and Dairy Industry used a lot of water and also generates huge amount of waste water, with many toxic elements in it. Food industry and Dairy sector requires a huge amount of water to process food and Dairy products and is the biggest generator of wastewater/effluent.
Waste water from food processing factories is huge in amount hence it needs pre-treatment before it can released into the environment or for reuse. It is mandatory for all the food and Dairy processing industries to set up ETP or Effluent Treatment Plant for effective wastewater management.
Most of the food and dairy processing industries produce huge amount of wastewater also known as effluent, it is a bi-product of their production process. The effluent/wastewater generated consists of several contaminants/pollutants. These contaminants/pollutants can be removed with the help of an effluent treatment plant (ETP).
Food and dairy processing unit needs greater amount of water for processing of food product. Wastewater discharged from dairy, food and beverage industries have variety of pollutants in it. Effluent or waste water from food/dairy industry consists of high concentrations of suspended solids, total solids, BOD (Biological Oxygen Demand), COD (Chemical Oxygen Demand), dissolved oxygen, oil and grease, fats, sugar, color, preservatives, and usually nutrients such as nitrogen, ammonia and phosphate etc.
ETP for food and dairy industry is developed and integrated with an advanced technology without which water-borne pathogens can spread out in to the environment and results in diseases and degradation of water bodies. ETP greatly treat and reduces the negative impacts of the waste water to aquatic ecosystems and to human beings hence ETP has proven to be an effective solution for waste water treatment applications.
Effluent treatment plant or ETP for food industries/dairy processing units is the best way to handle waste water pollution. Main objective of ETP is to produce a product that can be safely released into a watercourse or sewer in compliance with the recommended limits for discharge.
Treatment methods used by effluent treatment plant (ETP):
Here, are the 3 types of wastewater treatment methods used in ETP for food and dairy processing industry to reduce the potential impact of harmful components on the environment.
In normal functioning, ETPs have four (4) treatment levels i.e. preliminary treatment level, primary treatment level, secondary treatment level and tertiary treatment level. All these treatment levels have the ability to treat the effluent from food and dairy processing industry and bring down its parameters to the permissible limits specified by pollution control board.
1. Pretreatment or preliminary treatment level:
Being a pretreatment level, it removes coarse solids and other large materials that are found in industrial waste to avoid damage to next level treatment apparatus and machines. Partially treated wastewater is now goes to next treatment level called primary treatment level.
2. Primary treatment level:
Objective of primary treatment of waste water is removal of large solids from the pretreated waste water via physical settling or filtration. This level of process involves separation of floating material and heavy solids from liquid waste. The level can effectively remove 50-60% of the suspended solids, Oil and grease, organic nitrogen, organic phosphorus, and heavy metals.
4. Tertiary treatment level:
The purpose of Tertiary treatment level is to improve the quality of waste water before it can be released to the environment. This level removes the contaminants that were left behind in previous treatment levels.