Den internationale konference, IFC Water Congress, indtog 6. - 7. oktober 2021 hi-messen og satte fokus på bæredygtig vandanvendelse.
Temaet for konferencen var Water in the Food Industry - Reduce, Reuse & Recycle samt to tværgående temaer, som var FN's verdensmål for bæredygtig udvikling og udfordringer ved klimaforandringer. Programmet bød på den nyeste viden om, hvornår rent vand er rent nok, hvordan ’water fit for purpose’ defineres, og så blev deltagerne præsenteret for en ny europæisk adfærdskodeks for genbrug af vand i forarbejdningen af mejeriprodukter. Al denne viden blev derudover præsenteret med cases, der viste hvordan for eksempel Danish Crown bruger ’water fit for purpose’, og hvordan Coca-Cola engagerer sig i lokalsamfundet omkring bæredygtigt vandbrug.
Konferencen var opdelt i tre sessioner:
Water scarcity and poor water quality were challenges to the food and beverage sectors prepandemic. The pandemic has revealed fragility within the sector’s value chain (supply chain, manufacturing and with consumers) and highlighted the critical value of water.
The dairy industry is characterized by the production of large quantities of polluted effluents (average of 0.2 - 10 L/L processed milk) and having a large water footprint, over 30% of water usage in the food industry (IDF 2018).
Danmark Protein is based in Nr. Vium, close to two other Arla dairies, Nr. Virum dairy, and Arinco. Arla is rapidly expanding at the three sites, and with the current planned expansions, the water consumption and discharge can raise with an additional 60% within the next 5 years.
With this in mind, the three sites have started a strategic project, to maintain the existing water use, despite the many expansions. For this to succeed it is necessary for all three sites to work intensively with projects, to reduce the current water use, reuse as much as possible within the dairies, and recycle water for processes where it is possible.
Driven by water scarcity and restricted use of groundwater, F&B industries in Belgium were forced to move towards reuse since the beginning of the 21st century. Thanks to a clear and strict regulatory framework, recycling treated wastewater as “water of potable quality” was made possible. The presentation will give an overview of the different applications, treatment steps and operational costs and challenges linked to reuse. Some emerging trends will be treated at the end of the presentation.
At Carlsberg brewery in Fredericia, Denmark, a state-of-the-art Water Recovery Plant (WRP) is being installed. The WRP will allow Carlsberg to safely reuse 90% of process water, taking the brewery’s water efficiency from a “best-in-class” of 2.9 hl water/hl beer to a radical new level of 1.4 hl/hl.
In the meat industry, tap water is used for a large variety of processes, ranging from cleaning the surface of carcasses, over cleaning and disinfection of tools, to cleaning of high hygiene surface areas in direct contact with food products. As clean drinking water is a scarce resource, a more intelligent use of the water resources within the industry should be considered.
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Usually, drinking water quality is required for water to be used in food industry. However, the drinking water is very often transformed right after the entrance in the food manufacturing factory by e.g. softening, cooling, heating, filtering, or addition of chemicals.
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When the food company recycles process water from food production, uses water containing residues from food production and, if possible, uses "clean water" where it is safe, this results in savings on new drinking water and waste water management resources.
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Dairy processing consumes high amounts of water resulting in similar high amounts of wastewater outlet. Reuse of water including reclaiming water from milk, whey and other dairy liquids constitute good business cases and reclaiming water from milk processing streams is currently gaining interest among dairy processers world-wide, and systems are now in place in Northern Europe, California, New Zealand and Australia.
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Use of treated process water in clean-in-place (CIP) operations in a food plant could save significant amounts of potable water. The process water is collected after CIP cleaning and is currently sent to the municipal wastewater treatment plant. The objective of this presentation is to examine the risks associated with the use of the process water after advanced treatment (membrane bioreactor (MBR), ultrafiltration (UF), reverse osmosis (RO) and disinfection with UV-C and chlorine dioxide (ClO2)).
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