In the rise of a microbrew era, U.S. craft brewers produced an impressive 22.2 million barrels of beer, resulting in a 22% percent increase in retail dollars and 18% rise in volume last year. Beer enthusiasts and independent breweries alike rejoice at this microbrew surge, but a growing production of craft brews can be a headache for wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) operators and communities tasked with handling the increased wastewater load.
The larger load of high BOD/COD-level wastewater created from brewing鈥攚hich includes dissolved brewery waste solids like excess malt, yeast and hops鈥攐ften requires additional WWTP infrastructure for processing. And, to the brewers鈥� dismay, producing more wastewater can be financially burdening for the small breweries charged to dispose of their high BOD/COD waste stream.
Forward-thinking operations are turning to anaerobic digestion (AD) to combat brewery waste disposal issues. Utilizing brew waste through anaerobic digesters generates stable, on-site energy to offset a brewery鈥檚 load requirements. Sustainable energy created from biogas reduces brewery carbon footprints while also providing cost stability at a time of fossil fuel prices fluctuation.
Aside from creating renewable energy from waste, digesters help solve brewers bottom line鈥攖hey ease the burden on nearby WWTP by lowering the strength of wastewater streams leaving breweries, which in turn lowers community and brewery infrastructure costs.
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