Water Recovery RO Systems Provide Environmental Sustainability

For the beverage bottling industry, RO “Re-Use” systems provide sustainable, reliable cost-effective solutions to meet the industries stringent water specifications. Much of a process plants “waste” water ends up going to municipal sewer systems. Most municipal systems mandate effluent content limitations on Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), Total Suspended Solids (TOD) and Acidity (pH) as well as total volume. Should the effluent exceed establish limits, and they often do, penalties in the form of surcharges are imposed.

With so much water going down the drain it makes sense for bottling plants to reduce their reject water with Reverse Osmosis based “Re-Use” systems. It is another way that plants can save money while reducing their impact on the environment.

Case study: Water Treatment Systems.us, division of Water Management Group, Inc., has supplied a low-cost, membrane process system for Shasta Corporation’s Miami Bottling facility for the purpose of recovering thousands of gallons of process water that would otherwise be discharged to the city sewer system. The Miami Bottling facility had been exceeding its permittable discharge limits and, as a result, been paying thousands of dollars in fees to the Miami-Dade Sewer Authority.

The WMG, Inc. “Reuse” system was designed to recover approximately 75% of previously treated water used for bottling soft drinks and bottled water products. For this facility, the cost of the equipment will be repaid in less than a year due to the cash savings that would have otherwise been spent on discharge fees.

Additional savings come from the reuse of the product water from the WMG “Reuse” system. The water quality produced by the WMG system is so good that it is reused in the facility in several ways resulting in additional savings for Shasta. The water quality from the “Reuse” system is so good that the recovered water can be reused for process water and/or plant utilities.

Beverage bottling companies, with similar circumstances, no longer need to discharge huge amounts of “good” quality water to city sewer and pay thousands of dollars in fees.