Water stress: making a difference

Since the beginning of the last century, water use across the globe has increased exponentially – rising from around 500 billion m³ to over 4 trillion m³ in 2014 – primarily as a result of the move towards more resource-intensive practices in many industries.

According to the UN, the world is heading towards a global water crisis, which will cause global water demand to exceed supply by 40% by 2030. 

Currently, the food manufacturing industry is responsible for over 70% of all freshwater use, meaning that implementing procedures dedicated to saving water would have an enormous impact on this figure.

Reducing water stress is already a vital part of initiatives such as WRAP’s Courtauld Commitment 2030, which aims to provide the means for the food and drink sector to achieve global environmental goals with collaborative action and companies such as PepsiCo have been adopting water-saving and wastewater recycling processes for over a decade with good results – cutting water usage by 26% while also saving $80 million in operational costs.

Meanwhile, food and drink production giant Nestlé has, in recent years, focused specifically on wastewater treatment, having built facilities in all Central and West Africa Region factories and beyond. As a result, the company has reduced water consumption by 10% in its Tema factory in Ghana, and saves 16,500 tons of water a month in its baby milk plant in China, with plans to continue to optimise water usage in more locations.

Wastewater recycling is the process of partial or total water reuse, essentially contributing to creating a circular economy. Wastewater can be reused in a variety of ways. When businesses have the means to implement water recycling procedures, failing to grasp the opportunity is quite simply a waste of money as well as resources.

Businesses operating in the food and drink industry produce a significant amount of liquid waste, which is referred to as trade effluent. Due to the environmental impact that wastewater can have when not managed correctly, there are significant limitations on how companies can dispose of it, restricting the type and quantity of waste that can be deposited into sewers. This, coupled with potentially costly financial charges in the event of anything going wrong, should prompt manufacturers to find new ways to handle waste.

The food and drink sector naturally needs vast quantities of water to run its operations, and while there’s little that can be done to reduce the required amount of water, manufacturers should aim to become more resilient, and wastewater recycling has the ability to make a considerable difference.

Given its potential to provide substantial savings and help meet global environmental goals, why is wastewater recycling not yet a widespread procedure in the food and drink industry? While the UK is well-known for its treatment and recycling of wastewater, adopting these processes on an individual scale presents different challenges, one of which is the negative public perception of wastewater recycling in food manufacturing.

Aside from lack of availability of equipment and steep prices discouraging business owners, there’s a general reluctancy to implement these processes due to potential reputational damage in countries such as the UK.

Contamination concerns are at the forefront of consumers’ and manufacturers’ minds, and while treating water that is subsequently going to come into contact with food directly is more problematic, wastewater can be utilised for a variety of other purposes, too. It can be reused in factories for uses such as toilet flushing, cleaning of equipment and in industrial processes that don’t require complicated processes of decontamination.

Though it might not yet be possible for wastewater recycling to be implemented as part of standard procedures, there are numerous ways businesses can optimise their water usage and play a role in achieving environmental goals.