Waste Management for the Food Industries

Ioannis S. Arvanitoyannis

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN: 9780080554938
• Topic: Technik & Maschinenbau
• Subtopic: Umweltmanagement

The continuously increasing human population, has resulted in a huge demand for processed and packaged foods. As a result of this demand, large amounts of water, air, electricity and fuel are consumed on a daily basis for food processing, transportation and preservation purposes. Although not one of the most heavily polluting, the food industry does contribute to the increase in volume of waste produced as well as to the energy expended to do so. For the first time, nine separate food industry categories are thoroughly investigated in Waste Management for the Food Industries in an effort to help combat this already acute problem. The current state of environmental management systems is described, offering comparisons of global legislation rarely found in other resources. An extensive review of commercial equipment, including advantages and disadvantages per employed waste management technique, offers a unique perspective for any academic, student, professional, and/or consultant in the food, agriculture and environmental industries.- Thoroughly examines the most prevalent and most polluting industries such as Meat, Fish, Dairy, Olive Oil, Juice and Wine industries- Includes synoptical tables [methods employed, physicochemical or microbiological parameters altered after treatment etc] and comparative figures of the effectiveness of various waste management methods- Contains nearly 2500 of the most up-to-date references available

PART 1

Environmental Management Systems: Applications and Potential

1 Potential and Representatives for Application of Environmental Management System (EMS) to Food Industries

Ioannis S. Arvanitoyannis

Current state of Environmental Management System (EMS) implementation

Emissions and wastewater management

Food industry and agricultural waste

Beverage industry

Fruit and vegetable industry

Meat and poultry

Agricultural waste

Effects of pollution on organisms

Glass, chemicals and other products

Environmental attitudes and politics

Progress in alternative energy

Environmental impact assessment

Current state of Environmental Management System (EMS) implementation

The management of environmental issues is of growing interest nowadays. There is a need to understand the important environmental impacts on the community and then consider the advantages and disadvantages associated with various levels of environmental management (Norman, 1997). The Ministers of Environment of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN/ECE) reaffirmed their strong commitment, developed over the three previous Ministerial Conferences in Dobris (1991), Lucerne (1993) and Sofia (1995), to cooperate on environmental protection within the ECE region. They committed themselves to comply with the obligations arising from the stipulated declaration and environmental conventions. They promised to enhance their efforts toward a sustainable development by supporting the work of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and other global organization conventions (4th Ministerial Conference) (Boudouropoulos and Arvanitoyannis, 1999, 2000).

Emissions and wastewater management

Consideration of environmental issues is growing, bringing about the need for more sophisticated control of industrial emissions and waste and faster and more advanced on-board diagnosis (Spetz et al., 1998). Pollution can originate from mobile (emissions for vehicles) or stationary sources (industries) (Treshow and Anderson, 1991). There is a growing interest in reaching zero emission in power plants, similarly to hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP) for zero-defective products (Spetz et al., 1998). Quantification, control and modeling of wastewater emissions received greater attention in 1999. The Clean Air Act Amendments (CAA) have established regulatory requirements which considerably affected wastewater operations (De Hollander, 1998). The Water Environment Federation (WEF) sponsored a conference on water re-use and water reclamation (Van Riper and Geselbracht, 1998).

Chemical sensors operating at high temperatures and fast enough to record infinitesimal time changes between an oxidizing and reducing ambient can be used for cylinder-specific monitoring of petrol car engines. Gas molecules, like carbon monoxide, reacting with oxygen will lower the sensor signal, while decomposition of nitric oxide releases oxygen on the surface leading to a stronger sensor signal (Spetz et al., 1998). The first report on gas-sensitive field-effect devices based on silicon with a catalytic gate of palladium was published in 1975 (Lundstrom et al., 1975). Chemical sensors with catalytic metal gates operating at high temperatures provided new horizons for emission control. Their operation principle is very simple and based on surfaces/interfaces phenomena with very small time constants, thus enabling very fast responses. They also constitute an interesting combination of material physics, heterogeneous catalysis, in conjunction with electronic devices (Spetz et al., 1998).

The CAA requires industrial facilities to address the accidental release of regulated substances to the community and also sets regulations governing emissions of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) from wastewater using maximum achievable control technology (MACT) (Spetz et al., 1998). In a case study for a publicly owned installation treatment in Virginia, controlled by industrial users, the wastewater had a high volatile organic chemical (VOC) content, which was stripped and emitted into the atmosphere. The standards for publicly owned installation treatment implemented a financially viable controlled technological approach to comply with state and federal clean air laws (Rogers and Steidel, 1998). Several traditional treatment processes can be used to reduce the VOC content of waste and comply with air emissions requirements, such as closed sewer systems, nitrogen- or gas-blanketing vessels and strippers on biological reactors (Venkatesh, 1997).

Wastewater can be purified by various treatments. The natural treatments can be classified into several categories:

1. soil-based systems

2. wetland systems, which include free water surface, submerged flow and vertical flow systems; aquatic systems, including pond and floating aquatic plant systems

3. on-site systems

4. phyto-remediation.

In soil-based systems, a study in overland flow, where the phosphorus removal from swine lagoon effluent was examined, showed that system slope did not affect sediment phosphorus concentrations, even at various application rates (Liu et al., 1997). The use of constructed wetlands showed advantages, such as low cost and ease of incorporation into agricultural systems, whereas the main drawbacks were the required training. Wastewater treatment is the primary goal of many wetland systems, followed by ancillary benefits of public use and wildlife habitat (Knight, 1997). Aquatic systems and, more specifically, waste-stabilization ponds, could be implemented by means of sustainable development. The spatiotemporal dynamics and removal efficiency of pollution-indicator bacteria were studied in two high-rate oxidation ponds. Although bacteria removal was correlated with season (highest removal in summer), removal was always well correlated with retention time. Comparison with treatment lagoons showed advantages for the high-rate ponds (Bahlaui et al., 1998). The high land area requirements and limited cool season growth in temperate climates proved to be significant limitations in floating aquatic plant systems. Although biological oxygen demand (BOD), total suspended solids (TSS) and algae removal is favorable in duckweed treatment systems, the limited nitrogen removal constitutes an impediment to extensive implementation (White and Burken, 1998).

Numerous articles and reviews have summarized and evaluated available water reclamation processes to meet current water-quality requirements. A seven-month pilot-plant study in Los Angeles County (California) evaluated three filtration systems for water reuse using high-purity oxygen-activated sludge plant effluent: a deep-bed anthracite filter, a shallow depth pulsed-bed sand filter and a continuous backwash deep-bed sand filter. All three filters were ...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Food Science and Technology: International Series
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contributors
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• PART 1: Environmental Management Systems: Applications and Potential
• PART 2: Environmental Legislation
• PART 3: Waste Treatment Methodologies
• PART 4: Waste Treatment Methodologies of Foods of Plant Origin
• PART 5: Waste Treatment Methodologies of Foods of Animal Origin
• PART 6: Food Packaging Waste Treatment
• Index
• Food science and technology: International Series