There is a way to reduce expenses for the treatment of wastewater and hazardous waste, and it embodies the optimization of production processes and a decrease in environmental damage.

Every enterprise that creates or deals with hazardous materials and creates wastewater and hazardous waste is aware of the high economic costs it has to deal with at the "end of the road" of the material, during the treatment and disposal of the waste. But what if we told you that there are very simple solutions that can lead to a significant reduction in these expenses?

Sutok Environmental Engineering is engaged in the field of optimizing the use of raw materials, recycling, recovery and assimilating the principles of the circular economy in industry in Israel. Our extensive experience in the field of industrial wastewater helps us find our customers weak points in the factory processes and improve them, while adjusting the methods of wastewater treatment and thus bring economic and process efficiency together.

Cost reduction can be done, among other things, by characterizing the wastewater or waste and separating them into different streams. In addition, there are situations in which it is possible to prevent the "end of the road" and close the ends of the circle, so that the waste we created returns as a new raw material.

 

What are the ways of treating wastewater and hazardous waste?

 

There are two ways to treat hazardous liquid waste:

 

1. Removal of the waste to an authorized site in cubes, barrels or tankers, where the waste will be treated according to its content. This solution usually involves high costs for the transportation and treatment of waste.

2. Pre-treatment of waste at the factory in order to discharge it as wastewater to the municipal wastewater treatment plant or to reduce the costs of its treatment at a licensed site. This type of treatment involves expenses for waste treatment and additional expenses for the treatment of wastewater at the wastewater treatment plant, because these wastewaters are usually characterized by abnormal values of pollutants. In addition, if the factory’s wastewater treatment facility is not functioning properly, there may be deviations that will result in fines from the water corporations.

 

It should be noted that in both cases, often a significant part of the wastewater does not contain hazardous substances, but is taken into account in the treatment expenses of the removal and waste treatment providers.

 

How can the treatment of wastewater and hazardous waste be optimized?

 

Optimizing the handling of resources requires in-depth procedural and chemical knowledge and understanding, in order to optimally utilize the inventory of the lines and the materials within them, and to cheapen the process. The separation of waste according to different streams in the factory, and especially the separation of hazardous waste from non-hazardous waste, will lead to a reduction and prevention of unnecessary removal and external treatment of waste that does not need it. For the most part, the bulk of the wastewater that will be received after separation will be "clean" wastewater, which does not have abnormal values of pollutants, and can be routed to the municipal sewer. In this way, we will save unnecessary and high expenses on the removal and treatment of wastewater that does not require it. It is possible to take another step forward and route the clean wastewater for reuse in the factory and thus also save on the costs associated with the consumption of water and raw materials. Finally, the small part obtained from the separation and contains hazardous material, will be removed and treated at a treatment facility.

 

In practice, the separation of the streams depends on the type of production processes, the materials and the waste collection processes in the factory, and it can be carried out in several ways:

 

1. Separate piping or faucets.

2. Wastewater collection into separate containers.

3. Separation of rinses according to product types.

4. Performing a pre-rinse, after which the "dirty" stream will be removed, and the water from the subsequent rinses will be directed to the wastewater treatment facility.

5. When waste lines are separated, the raw material can be reused from the waste stream.

 

What are the economic business benefits of resource efficiency?

 

Separating the wastewater into different streams in the factory (normal, abnormal and hazardous) will result in process efficiency and a reduction in resources:

 

• Reduction of the plant's expenses for the treatment of wastewater by reducing the amount of abnormal wastewater discharged into the wastewater treatment facility.

• Reduction of removal and treatment costs for external treatment plants by reducing the amount of hazardous waste that is evacuated.

• Reducing purchase expenses of the raw materials by reusing waste and recycling the raw materials separated from the other streams.

• Reducing water consumption costs by reusing the "clean" water.

• Process streamlining that will happen during the process of identifying and separating the different streams. This is an opportunity to locate and upgrade inefficient processes, energy inefficiency, leaks, depreciation of materials, and more.

 

What are the environmental benefits of separating waste streams in a factory?

 

Beyond the economic benefits for the plant, the stream separation process has substantial environmental benefits, among them:

 

• Reducing the use of raw materials and water in the production processes by reuse.

• Reducing pollution from water reservoirs by reducing the amount of abnormal wastewater that origins from the factories wastewater facility and ends up in water sources.

• Reducing the pollution created during the treatment of hazardous waste created as a result of energy or chemicals consumption for the purpose of separating the hazardous components in the physico-chemical treatment process.

• Reducing transportation pollution due to the removal of hazardous waste by reducing the amount of waste that is sent to the waste treatment plants.

 

Sutok Environmental Engineering provides its customers with environmental consulting that enables turning environmental challenges that cost capital into profit, by accompanying customers in the implementation of processes and in the use of raw materials that contribute to a decrease in damage to the environment, alongside significant financial s