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Streamlining Wastewater Treatment in
Poultry Processing: Michigan Turkey and
Lyco Team Up to Provide a Showpiece for
Reducing BOD and TSS Levels
With the steady increase in poultry processing rates
there has been a corresponding increase in wastewater pollutant
concentrations.
Despite mechanical improvements in wastewater treatment,
many poultry processors continue to pay unnecessarily high fees
for municipal water discharges.
$100-million-annual processor, Michigan Turkey Producers, in
conjunction with Lyco Manufacturing, has set up a patented, stateof-the-art screening system
that is an industry showpiece for poultry wastewater treatment
By Jim McMahon
Like many poultry processors, Michigan Turkey Producers, a mediumsized poultry processor of live tom turkeys handling 4.5 million birds
annually, keeps a tight rein on their BOD (biochemical oxygen demand)
and TSS (total suspended solids) levels in their discharged wastewater.
But, where most processors are careful to limit poultry processing
byproducts from entering and contaminating their wastewater stream because of the difficulty in removing them prior to discharge - Michigan
Turkey operates quite differently. The company places little limits on
the volume of particulate organic matter allowed to be put through their
wastewater, because of a unique double screening system they employ,
built by Lyco Manufacturing (www.lycomfg.com), that effectively
removes sufficient load before discharge to leave levels of BOD and
TSS well within municipal standards.
Michigan Turkey is a live turkey processor, and a boned meat company,
located in Wyoming, Michigan. "We process just toms, roughly 20,000
birds per day," says Mike DeVries, Plant Engineer for the company.
"Our average bird weight is about 40 pounds live, and 34 pounds
dressed. Ninety percent of everything we do is boneless. We ship to
industrial users who cook our products into a deli product, a log or loaf.
Our brands are the Golden Legacy Brand, and Silver Legacy Brand.
Sixty percent of our meat goes out fresh, 40 percent goes out frozen.
The greatest part of our distribution, about 70 percent, is in the midwest U.S. and east coast; but we also sell (the remaining 30 percent)
into Russia, Japan, China, Central America, Canada and South Africa
as well. Our total facility is comprised of three buildings on 42 acres, we
have 375,000 square feet of operations space with 187,000 of that for
live-bird processing."
"We purposely set up our wastewater system to handle anything that
comes down it, any volume and concentration of particulate matter."
Says DeVries. "Consequently, we have a lot more load coming down
our drains that we have to get out than other processors. This is
different from how most poultry operations function, where usually they
are trying to keep the load in their wastewater at a continually lower
concentration throughout processing, but this is because their screening
system can¹t handle it. We are moving 700,000 to 800,000 gallons of
wastewater a day through our system without any jam ups at the
screening, and we are ending up with BOD and TSS ratings well within
municipal standards."
"In our picking operation we drop right to water with our feathers, and
we actually move our feathers via water," continues De Vries. "So we
had to have a Lyco screen for that as well. The cost for us on the
rendering side, or downstream side of processiong, was the moisture
content, so with the Lyco double drum screen we found that we
generate an extremely dry feather and consequently avoided any
surcharging for moisture. That has been an enormous benefit all the
way to the point that our rendering actually had to add moisture to
process our feathers. The advantages are avoiding a surcharge, and
also the advantage of being able to haul more volume with less weight."
Poultry processing is a relatively high water usage activity, as is typical
of many food processing industries. For broilers, five to ten gallons are
used to process one five-pound, average-sized bird. For turkey
processors the volume of water used is considerably higher - the
average live weight of slaughtered turkeys exceeds 27 pounds. In
some cases, such as the processing of large toms, as done by Michigan
Turkey, bird weights can reach up to 40 pounds, with water
consumption for processing in the range of 35 to 40 gallons per bird. It
is not unusual for a poultry processor to generate 750,000 to 1,500,000
gallons of wastewater daily.
This water is laden with proteins, fats and carbohydrates from meat, fat,
blood, skin and feathers. The water is also polluted with a fair amount of
grit and other inorganic matter. Waste load can be determined by a
number of different measurements, including BOD (biochemical oxygen
demand), TSS (total suspended solids concentration), COD (the
chemical oxygen demand), and FOG (fats, oil and grease), but poultry
plant wastewater is most often tested for BOD a measure of the
amount of oxygen needed to degrade the organic matter (feathers, fat
and blood) in the wastewater.
Poultry processors are required to remove the majority of the soluble
and particulate organic material in their wastewater prior to discharge
from the plant in order to achieve compliance with local, state and
federal environmental regulations. The problem is that few screening
systems are really capable of continuously cleaning out all of this
material to a level within the standards of municipalities, and
municipalities use BOD loads to determine charges and surcharges for
wastewater dischargers.
"We discharge ultimately to a city municipal system and they charge us
for anything that we put into the water," says DeVries. "We have to
control our loading costs to avoid additional surcharges. With the Lyco
double drum screens we are able to load up as we process, and then
pull everything out of the wastewater before we discharge. It is a very
efficient system."
Lyco¹s Double Drum screen uses rotary action to separate waste solids
from liquids in one step, eliminating the need for two sequential, singlestage screens. Primary screening takes place when the wastewater
enters the inner drum from the inside and screens out solids within the
range of 0.06" to 0.02". Secondary screening follows as the wastewater
passes through the outer drum, screening particles as small as 0.02".
The net result is that more solids are screened out of the wastewater.
"The Double Drum screen, which can handle up to 3,000 gallons per
minute, was designed to eliminate the need for primary and secondary
screening," says Terry Brady with Lyco. "Our research shows that in
the majority of screening applications processors used a perforated
primary screen then pumped the water to a secondary screen. Lyco
designed a way to do the primary screening with the inner drum screen
first, and then the secondary screening done with the outer screen,
which is the finer screen."
There is also the issue of blinding - poultry is laden with fats and other
slimy-type particulates that clog the screen openings. This is a common
problem with traditional screening equipment - limiting the volume of
wastewater and load that can be moved through a screen, which
causes water and particulate to "spill" over the end of it. The Lyco
double-drum uses a self-cleaning wedge-wire screen material, and a
patented traveling spray system - which can use as little as 10 GPM of
fresh water to keep the screen open, compared to typical rotary screens
that consume 36 GPM. These features drastically minimize, if not
entirely eliminate, screen blinding.
"A lot of other screen designs let material go through because they
don¹t have the ability to manage it," says De Vries. "Particularly when it
gets into high volume quantities of material going through. This is not
the case with the Lyco double drum. It can handle anything we put
through it, regardless of the gallons per minute or particulate load."
"I have been around a lot of screens used in the poultry industry, and
have experienced their external and internal problems firsthand,"
continues De Vries. "I look for screening equipment that is heavy duty,
durable, engineered to be user friendly, tool friendly and mechanic
friendly. I want to be able to set it up and have it run with minimal
maintenance. We have literally loaded the Lyco double drum with
thousands of pounds of product at different times and it has performed
without any problems. Our need has been to get our heavily laden
particulate out of the wastewater before we discharge it to the municipal
system. The Lyco screen manages that for us, particularly with TSS,
which ultimately returns thousands of dollars back to us each month."
Poultry processors can have their rates reduced by a large portion using
the double drum - such as a 40 percent charge reduction from
municipalities, which could equal $50,000 to well over $100,000 in
saving a year.
Approximately 84 percent of poultry processors in the U.S. are using
some form of screening application to reduce wastewater particulates including internally-fed rotary screens, externally-fed rotary screens, and
shaker-and-bar type screens. The vast majority of these are singlescreen applications. With the advent of double-screen technology,
processors can now capitalize on a much more efficient and costeffective system for their wastewater treatment.
About Lyco - Lyco Manufacturing, the world¹s leading manufacturer of
commercial cooking and cooling equipment, and liquid/solid separation
equipment for food processors, is focused on improving their
customer¹s return on investment through innovative design. Their
personnel have extensive experience and knowledge in the food
processing industry. Lyco equipment is specialized in the areas of
cook/chill, liquid/solid separation, root crop preparation, and snap bean
processing equipment. Their equipment is at work with virtually every
leading food processor in North America, and many around the world.
Lyco also has a fabrication division that focuses on medium-volume,
high-quality and precision weldments for other original equipment
manufacturers. World-class metal manufacturing lasers, precision press
brakes, and robot welders enhance the quality and reduce the cost of
products made in the food and fabrication divisions of the company.
Founded in 1980 by the owner and Chairman of the Boa rd, David R.
Zittel, Lyco Manufacturing is housed in a state-of-the art 80,000 squarefoot facility located in Columbus, WI, 30 miles northeast of Madison, WI.
For more information on Lyco Manufacturing, Inc., and their double
drum screening solutions, please contact Jon Butt, Division Manager,
Liquid & Solid Separation; 115 Commercial Drive, P.O. Box 31,
Columbus, WI 53925; Phone 920-623-4152; Fax 920-623-3780; email:
jon.butt@lycomfg.com; or visit their website at www.lycomfg.com .
To reach Michigan Turkey Producers please contact Mike DeVries,
Plant Engineer, at 2140 Chicago Drive SW; Wyoming, Michigan 49519;
Phone 616-245-2221; Fax 616-247-1545; email: miked@miturkey.com;
www.miturkey.com .
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Jim McMahon writes on manufacturing equipment and process
applications.