The production of vegetables is characterized by seasonal campaigns that mainly fall from June to October. Due to the nature and variety of processed raw material, wastewater from the vegetable industry can be difficult to characterize. Recently Caldic developed and implemented a tailored wastewater treatment solution for a large scale vegetable processing company.
Vegetable wastewater treatment: challenge accepted
Wastewater generated from washing vegetables moves ground-, colloidal- and dissolved contamination to the wastewater. During winter, rainfall leads to accumulation of ground on the vegetable surface which hinders the entire wastewater treatment process. Increased suspended solids and chemical and biological oxygen demand results in oxygen starvation and excessive sludge production. However, when one of our customers was facing serious water treatment complications and asked us to find a solution, this did not frighten us. On the contrary, we accepted the challenge and did everything in our power to meet the customer’s needs.
Testing, evaluating, implementing
This customer, a vegetable processing company located in the North of the Netherlands, was experiencing difficulties treating the wastewater from their washing line. Our water treatment technologists tested various types of organic and aluminium based coagulants and flocculants (polymers) and proposed several changes to the current dosing and sedimentation process.
Results of our water treatment approach
The new coagulation protocol has increased the settleability speed and the dewaterability of the sludge. Although these improvements were only recently implemented, the customer has already experienced significant savings in sludge handling costs (one tank of sludge less per week). The project success will be replicated to other vegetables and fruit processing companies with similar operational issues.
Would you like to know more about tailored water treatment solutions? Contact our water treatment specialist Ander Paz.