Case Study: Wastewater Cost Reduction at Soft Drink - Nalco

Background
A market-leading producer of soft drinks operates a
global network of manufacturing and bottling plants.
The company makes a very strong commitment to
sustainability, publishing its own annual Sustainability
Report, being signatory to the United Nations Global
Compact and CEO Water Mandate, making submissions
to the General Reporting Initiative (GRI), and is
listed on the Dow Jones World Sustainability Index.
The company has specific sustainability goals around
water and energy use reduction, and a global commitment
to maintain effective wastewater treatment at
its plants in order to protect aquatic life in the rivers
which receive its wastewater.
The company operates a production and bottling plant
in Northern Europe. The plant has been in operation
since 1964 and today produces over 75 million litres
of soft drinks per year. A new wastewater treatment
plant was commissioned in 1994. The plant is
Advanced Wastewater Treatment
Technology Delivers Major Reductions in
the Total Cost of Operation at a Soft Drinks
Production Plant in Europe
EnviRonmEntal indicatoRs e ROI
Use of Nalco programme allowed sludge to be
composted as opposed to co-incineration
Elimination of gas emissions by avoiding the
need for incineration
Nalco programme utilised existing equipment
and avoided new investment in a dosing and
control system
asset
protection
accredited to both ISO 14001, the Environmental
Management Standard, and to ISO 9001, the
Quality Management Standard.
Challenges
Economic REsults
Reduced sludge disposal costs by 50% from
€180,000 to €90,000 per year
Overall reduction of €67,600 per year in the
Total Cost of Operation
Avoided capital expenditure of €20,000 for
powder polymer system
The site produces around 1800 tonnes of waste
sludge per year from the operation, which was being
sent for off-site disposal as a fertilizer spread to
land. Prior to transportation, the sludge was being
dewatered using an emulsion polymer programme
applied by a competitor of Nalco. Due to recent
changes in the local legislation regarding sludge disposal
and the associated charges, the relatively high
level of oil in this particular sludge meant that the
sludge could no longer be spread to land, but had
to be sent for co-incineration. This meant a 100%
increase in sludge disposal charges. The lower-cost
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Case Study CH-1047E

disposal of the sludge to land or composting was no
longer an option as the sludge contained in excess
of the legal limit of 560 mg C10-C20 oil per kg dry
matter. The majority of this oil fraction was coming
from the oil in the emulsion polymer used to dewater
the sludge. The company examined the possibility
of using dry polymer technology, however this would
necessitate an investment in dosing and control
equipment of over €20,000. This level of capital expenditure
was unacceptable to the company. At this
point, the company invited Nalco to come on site and
to propose an alternative approach.
Goal
The company wanted to identify options for lowercost
sludge treatment and disposal, to enable the
sludge to be composted, thus lowering the Total
Cost of Operation (TCO) and improving its environmental
performance. The preference was for the
implementation of a new solution at zero capital
cost of implementation, and the use of an oil-free
technology.
Action Plan
Nalco staff conducted a comprehensive series of
dewatering tests on site using advanced oil-free
ULTIMER ® polymer technology and were able to
demonstrate good dewatering performance with
improved filtrate clarity. ULTIMER technology is an
advanced water-base polymer technology for
which Nalco recently received the United States
Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award.
NALCO COMPANY OPERATIONS
North America: Headquarters –1601 West Diehl Road • Naperville, Illinois 60563 • USA
Energy Services Division – 7705 Highway 90-A • Sugar Land, Texas 77487 • USA
Europe: Ir.G.Tjalmaweg 1 • 2342 BV Oegstgeest • The Netherlands
Asia Pacific: 2 International Business Park • #02-20 The Strategy Tower 2 • Singapore 609930
Latin America: Av. das Nações Unidas 17.891 • 6° Andar 04795-100 • São Paulo • SP • Brazil
www.nalco.com
Results
On the basis of the on-site evaluation, the company
implemented the Nalco programme and this has
been in use ever since. Data verified by this customer
confirm that annual sludge disposal costs
have been reduced by 50%, from €180,000/year to
€90,000/year, and this has also eliminated the gas
emissions which had been associated with the coincineration
disposal route. The Nalco programme
was applied using the existing application equipment
on site, avoiding the need for the €20,000 capital
expenditure recommended by the competitor for the
alternative approach.
Taking the Total Cost of Operation into account, the
new Nalco programme delivered an annualised net
saving in TCO of €67,600/year.
Conclusion
This innovative approach to sludge treatment and
disposal, including lowering the suspended solids
in the filtrate and wastewater, helped the customer
towards meeting its cost reduction and sustainability
goals for the site. The combination of Nalco’s
problem-solving on-site Essential Expertise, and
the application of the market-leading innovative
ULTIMER technology, delivered major improvements
in sustainability performance, materials efficiency,
and cost reduction. This elevated site and product
profitability and identified other areas for continuous
performance improvement.
3D TRASAR, ULTIMER, NALCO and the logo are Trademarks of Nalco Company
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