BWT ANIA webinar replay
While remaining a major consumer of water for its processes, the food industry has to deal with regulations to meet the challenges of water stress and, more generally, ecologically responsible growth.
While efforts have long been underway throughout the food sector, using less and better quality water means constantly innovating and devising new approaches and methodologies made possible by technologies that are themselves constantly evolving.
The focus is on complying with regulations, of course, but also and above all on limiting health and environmental risks, and the need to guard against conflicts of use: in the event of restrictions, human consumption will always remain the priority.
Water recycling and WIHC: experimentation for regulation
Since 1998, regulations have provided a precise framework for the potential reuse of water in the food industry. From the end of 2023, industrial sites classified under the Industrial Emission Directive (IED) will also be required to limit their water consumption, which will almost always involve recycling or reusing water.
Since 2018, the French Public Health Code no longer strictly prohibits the recycling of process effluent as water intended for human consumption (WIHC). The only difference is that the corresponding decrees have never been brought into force!
So there's still a lot to be done in this area: the government is giving itself time to experiment and define the outlines of the applicable methodologies. In particular, through real projects. Several experiments are underway, and a call for projects has been launched until March 2022. The aim is to finalise the implementing decrees based on real experiments, with ministerial authorisation.
4R strategy: a comprehensive, progressive approach
Making the most of wastewater means drawing less from resources, producing more while consuming less, and avoiding the risk of quite sudden stoppages in production in the event of a drought.
To achieve this, we need to adopt a global approach, starting with a quantitative and qualitative mapping of all the points of consumption, in order to carry out a feasibility study and/or a pilot test, and then install operational and functional facilities and processes on an industrial site scale.
As for the 4Rs, a certain degree of progressiveness is required to guarantee the success of the approach:
1. Reduce consumption (more efficient, water-saving equipment, optimisation and parameterisation of installations, operator behaviour, etc.);
2. Reuse: without treatment, in a short loop, from process A to process B (e.g. use of rinse water for washing);
3. Recycle: with treatment, in a short loop, upstream of the WWTP, to modify and control the physico-chemical and bacteriological qualities of the water;
4. REUT (Réutilisation des Eaux Usées Treitées - Reuse of treated wastewater): at the end of the WWTP, in a long loop, with treatment. The water can be reused on site or directed towards other operations or the community.
Optimising water use in the food industry: now is the time!
In addition to future obligations for certain sites, now is as good a time as any to launch projects to reduce water consumption, especially as water agencies and regions are offering a number of grants.
However, far from being individual projects, they need to be carried out in consultation with the public authorities (DREAL, ARS, for example), as well as private consortia (manufacturers, consultancies, equipment manufacturers, independent experts, etc.) to guarantee their effectiveness.
To understand in detail the approaches to be implemented and the levers to be activated to consume less and better quality water in the food industry, but also to discover the approach taken by the Danone Waters group (world leader in the bottling of mineral water), including the Volvic site and feedback from the Cristal Union sugar refinery (the Group is one of Europe's leading producers of sugar, alcohol and bioethanol), on the Bazancourt site, watch our dedicated webinar, with BWT experts, the International Office for Water and the ANIA.