Treatment and Recycling of Wastewater from Beverages/The Soft Drink Bottling Industry

Abstract

Water being the essential natural resources on earth is primarily required in domestic, agricultural and industrial sectors. Soft drink/beverage industries con- sume huge amount of fresh water as one of the essential ingredients and therefore, lead to waste water generation in large quantity. Major contributors for freshwater loss in beverage industry include washing of bottles, cleaning of machines and equipment, production line losses, filtration wastes and raw material wastes. These activities contaminate the discharged water with phosphates, nitrates, sodium, organic substances, suspended particles, increased BOD (biological oxygen demand), COD (chemical oxygen demand), high pH, thereby make it unfit for its reuse. Improved waste management is an hour of need for sustainable future and is based on the principle of 3Rs: reduce, reuse and recycle. The current chapter pro- vides an overview on the major waste water generating activities in soft drink indus- tries/breweries. Cost effective waste water treatment/management practices/ strategies to reutilize and save fresh water resource thereby reduce pollution loads are some of the major challenges that require detailed investigation.