A combination of funding cuts, aging infrastructure, and new pollutants has pushed the responsibility for water treatment back upstream to the facilities that produce the wastewater. This means food and beverage processors and other manufacturers that generate copious amounts of wastewater.

Bush Brothers and Company’s new $55 million Process Water Reclamation Facility (PWRF) has won a Design-Build Institute of America National Merit Award.

When a food or beverage processor begins breaking down costs, sometimes startling facts are revealed. Here’s a case in point: Widmer Brothers Brewery (Portland, Ore.), founded in 1984 and part of the Craft Brew Alliance (CBA), had been using a liquid ring vacuum pump to bottle its beers, but realized the technology was consuming roughly 5,000 gallons of water per day.

Styrotek, a manufacturer of expanded polystyrene foam packaging for grapes, recently undertook a major water efficiency program. In eight weeks, the company reduced its water usage from 20 million gallons per year to 12 million.

Sure, you want to be 'green' in the eyes of your community and customers, but there are economic pluses to treating wastewater.