Juicy Wastewater Challenge Requires a Refreshing Solution

A leading producer of premium natural, organic beverages located California was struggling with a not-so-tasty byproduct of beverage production: the generation of high-strength process wastewater.

In early 2003, the City’s POTW expressed its concern over the processor’s relatively high organic wasteloads. The company investigated a number of wastewater pretreatment options, finally selecting anaerobic technology as the preferred approach to reduce its organic wasteloads to the City.

ATI completed all engineering work as part of a design-build team incorporating Belgian technology. Construction of the pretreatment system, using only raw wastewater equalization and upflow anaerobic sludge blanket processes, was completed in October 2003. The system reached full-load by May 2004 and has been removing over 90% of the total COD in the process wastewater ever since.

The use of UASB technology has proven to be a creative solution to a unique challenge. This juice producer can now focus on making great beverages, while the POTW is relieved of the need to consider increasing its treatment capacity.