Water recycling reduces dairy water footprint

One of the major costs in milk processing is water. According to Envirowise, the average UK dairy uses 1.3 litres of water for every litre of milk processed, mostly for steam raising and cleaning in place (CIP)

Pilot plant trials confirmed that the MBR effluent could be fed directly to a reverse osmosis system. Veolia Water Technologies installed a MegaRO™ system to recover 200m3/day of the process wastewater to replace mains water in the CIP system. This was the first time reverse osmosis technology had been used for water recycling in the UK’s dairy industry.

The operating cost of the MegaRO™ is low; the recovered water actually costs less than mains water even after including capital amortisation. The net savings on the reduction in mains water consumption means that the new plant will give a payback in only two and half years.