The system, which was designed as a model for food and beverage plants globally, was installed by a partnership of CST Wastewater Solutions and Global Water Engineering (GWE). The $120 million state-of-the-art Bluetongue Brewery on New South Wales’ Central Coast will eventually have an annual capacity of 150 million litres.

Bluetongue Brewery’s water recovery is subjected to GWE’s state-of-the-art anaerobic treatment which significantly reduces the brewery’s carbon footprint by avoiding the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The wastewater passes through several pre-treatment steps before entering a GWE ANUBIX-B anaerobic methane reactor in which the wastewater’s organic content (COD) is digested by bacteria in a closed reactor, degrading the compounds and converting them into valuable biogas and cleaned effluent. Biogas from the process is collected and reused as renewable energy to power the brewery’s boiler.

Treated effluent continues to an aerobic post-treatment stage in which organic content is further reduced by GWE’s MEMBROX Membrane Biological Reactor (MBR) system. In the water polishing step, the water from the MBR unit is sent through a Reverse Osmosis (RO) installation. Finally the effluent is led to a disinfection and storage unit, where the recycled water is kept for reuse applications.