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Nestle factory in Mexico turns off taps completely, reduces wastewater
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Friday, 24 March, 2017, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Mexico City
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Why waste water? That’s the question we were all asked this World Water Day. Wastewater may not be something we spend much time thinking about, but it should be. Reducing wastewater and reusing it wherever possible can help preserve this vital natural resource.
There are plenty of tips on how to reduce wastewater at home. The taps should be turned off while brushing your teeth. A block should be put in the toilet cistern. A shorter shower should be taken. While these things certainly help, World Water Day is about thinking big as well as thinking small.
The Nestle dairy factory in Jalisco, a water-stressed state in Central Mexico, decided to take more drastic action. It turned off the taps completely, reducing its water consumption from 1.6 million litres a day to zero.
Milking the benefits
The factory, which has become the company’s first zero water manufacturing site in the world, now uses only recycled water from its dairy operations.
Put simply, instead of drawing water from the ground or mains, the factory gets all the water it needs from the milk it processes.
The facility takes fresh cow’s milk, normally around 88 per cent water, and heats it at low pressure to remove some of its water content.
The resulting steam is then condensed, treated and used to clean the evaporating machines.
Once the machines have been flushed out, the water is collected, purified and recycled again. No outside water is used at all.
Water supplies have come under severe strain in Mexico due to the population growth. So, saving groundwater is vitally important for the wellbeing of the local population.
“In Mexico, and around the world, water is a vital and fragile resource,” says Nestlé’s Paul Bulcke.
“Due to the relevance of water in the production of food and its role in the preservation of life, Nestlé worldwide will continue to pursue initiatives that contribute to the maintenance and access to natural resources,” he added.
Three ways to save
The world’s biggest food company uses a three-phase approach to reduce water in its factories.
First, engineers look for ways to optimise the existing manufacturing processes. Second, they look for opportunities to reuse the water already being used. In the third phase, they come up with new ways of extracting water from raw materials and recycling it.
The dairy factory in Mexico is a great example of this third-phase innovation.
“Due to the relevance of water in the production of food and its role in the preservation of life, Nestlé worldwide will continue to pursue initiatives that contribute to the maintenance and access to natural resources,” said Bulcke.
The triple-pronged approach has been used in more than 80 factories worldwide, enabling reductions in water usage between 10 and 30 per cent.
The Mexican factory has been such a success that work is already underway to transform Nestlé’s milk factory in the Californian city of Modesto to zero water.
The CHF 7 million project should save nearly 286 million litres per year when it is completed in 2018.
A precious resource
World Resources Institute, the global research organisation, is helping Nestlé save water by ensuring water management is environmentally, socially and economically beneficial.
Innovation and careful management has helped Nestlé cut water consumption by a third over the past 10 years. But the job is never done. The company is committed to staying at the forefront of efforts to increase efficiency and reduce all types of waste wherever possible.
The United Nations’ sixth Sustainable Development Goal is to halve the proportion of untreated wastewater and increase water recycling and safe reuse. Industry is essential to meeting that target.
Projects like the zero water factory show what is possible and highlight the value of constantly asking ‘Why waste water?’
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