Award-winning specialist fresh and exotic ingredients company Beacon Foods has invested £350,000 in an effluent treatment plant at its Mid-Wales base.
The investment, supported by a Welsh Assembly government processing and marketing grant, is part of a concerted drive by Brecon-based Beacon Foods to improve the efficiency and standards of its treated wastewater.
The membrane bioreactor effluent treatment plant was installed by Copa Ltd of Trowbridge, which specializes in wastewater treatment and storm-water management.
The plant is designed to treat up to 75 cubic metres a day of wastewater generated during vegetable processing to a level suitable for direct discharge to a local river, Afon Tarel.
At the heart of the plant are Kubota flat sheet membrane panels, which are submerged within a biological culture used to degrade wastewater constituents.
The plant is working so well that Beacon Foods is already looking to add to the system so that treated water can be reused in certain areas.
The average influent chemical oxygen demand (COD) concentration is 7,000 milligrams per litre with peaks of up to 11,600 mg/l. Since the plant was commissioned, the effluent COD concentration has been less than 75 mg/l.
"The advantages of the Copa MBR plant are its very small footprint, its simplicity, its low operator requirement and its very high quality effluent," said Stephen Kennedy, a senior process engineer with Copa Ltd.
"The quality of the effluent from the plant at Beacon Foods is so good the company is investigating potential re-use applications within the factory. We are very happy with the plant, which is doing everything that was asked of it."
Beacon Foods managing director Edward Gough said the plant had greatly improved the company's treatment of wastewater in line with its policy to use water more efficiently.
"The treated wastewater that we discharge is well under the limits set by the Environment Agency and is saving the company money, whilst also benefiting the environment," he added.
The project, which took five months to complete, was managed by Peter Jones from Brecknock Consultancy and the groundwork was carried out by A. Griffiths, Abergavenny.
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