Evaluation and Lessons Learned From Full Scale Water Recovery and Reuse Project at a Food Manufacturing Plant

Water shortage and water scarcity are becoming serious issues at both national and international levels. In the U.S. there are real water shortages in California, Arizona, Georgia and Texas. The most promising solution for reducing water footprint is water recovery and reuse. Also prolonged depletion of groundwater, increasing treatment costs of water/wastewater and enforcement of new direct discharge limits are accelerating the need for evaluation and implementation of water recovery and reuse projects. Water recycling and reuse not only prevent groundwater tables from dropping but also protect water resources for future generations. Frito-Lay Inc., a Division of PepsiCo, as part of its robust and thoughtful approach to environmental sustainability and reducing water footprint, has selected one of its manufacturing plants in U.S. to be the first full-scale “Water recovery and reuse facility” in U.S. This plant currently converts its process water into drinking water quality for direct reuse. Lessons learned during the design, construction, installation and startup of this project will be discussed in this paper. LPRO membrane fouling was the most challenging issue which required much time and investigation to resolve and develop a feasible solution. Currently the combined MBR-Activated Carbon-LPRO membrane system is running at 70-75% water recovery and producing high quality permeates which meet US EPA Primary and Secondary drinking water standards. This is the first industrial water recovery and reuse plant in the United States which converts food process water into drinking water quality for direct reuse in production. Annually, this plant will save more than 100,000,000 gallons of fresh water in State of Arizona.