CASE
STUDY
BEGA CHEESE: TURNING WASTE
TO RESOURCE USING NANO FILTRATION
The costs involved in this project were approximately $400,000.
The benefits included:
• Water conservation benefits include a 95% reduction in BOD
for this specific process line
• Financial benefits included additional revenue for the site
• Other benefits include:
Bega Cheese has installed a nano filtration plant to treat
its whey solids which made up a large proportion of the
North Coburg facility’s 7 million litres of trade waste
discharge. This process allows the treated waste to be
shipped back to its NSW drying facility and turned into
raw material to be sold to other manufacturers.
Drivers for change
Bega Cheese undertook this project to:
– Additional product for the company to market
– Reduction in trade waste charges
– Incremental business activity for NSW dryer
– Plant is low maintenance with very few moving parts
Staff training
To ensure that the new filtration plant worked successfully Bega
Cheese undertook special training for staff both theoretical and
practical in relation to a number of key aspects to the plant.
• Reduce product loss – dairy solids/raw materials that the
company had paid for that were not being utilised
• Reduce trade waste cost – high cost of treating whey solids
in trade waste
• Improve the site’s environmental performance
• ‘De-risk’ the site’s operations by reducing operating cost
Funding, costs and benefits
Bega Cheese funded this project from its own capital
expenditure budget, and it had very strong support from the
executive management team.
For more information contact Richard Paine.
Telephone
03 9350 5766
Email
richard.paine@begacheese.com.au
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