Water and wastewater minimization plan in food industries

摘要

Iran is one of the countries located in a dry and semi-dry area. Many provinces like Tehran are facing problems in recent years because of less precipitation. For reduction in wastewater treatment cost and water consumption, many research works have been carried out. One of them concerns food industries group, which consumes a great amount of water in different units. For example, in beverage industries, washing of glass bottles seven times requires large amounts of water but use of plastic bottles can reduce water consumption. Another problem is leakage from pipelines, valves, etc. Their repair plays an important role in the wastage of water. The non-polluted wasted water can be used in washing halls, watering green yards, recycling to the process or reusing in cooling towers. In this paper, after a short review of waste minimization plans in food industries, problems concerning water consuming and wastewater producing units in three Iranian food industries have been investigated. At the end, some suggestions have been given for implementing the water and wastewater minimization plan in the companies. [References: 8]