Water reuse and green energy benchmarks at new Bluetongue Brewery

CST Wastewater Solutions is partnering with Global Water Engineering (GWE) to deliver and install a treatment system with best-practice water reuse standards, while at the same time providing renewable energy for the brewery, reducing its dependence on fossil fuels.  

The $120 million state-of-the-art brewery now being built on NSW’s Central Coast will eventually have an annual capacity of 150 million litres, making it the state’s second largest. Pacific Beverages – a joint venture by Coca Cola Amatil and global brewer SAB Miller – has ensured the brewery will boast strict environmental standards and world-class water and energy savings, says Michael Bambridge, Managing Director of CST Wastewater Solutions.     

“With maximized water and energy conservation, Bluetongue’s wastewater treatment installation will set an industry benchmark for environmental concern by a brewery, demonstrating the company’s commitment towards operating a truly sustainable world class operation.”  

The new brewery’s wastewater will pass 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.  

This anaerobic treatment will significantly reduce the brewery’s carbon footprint by avoiding the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.  

Biogas from the process will be collected and reused as renewable energy to power the brewery’s boiler.  

Treated effluent will then continue to an aerobic post-treatment stage in which organic content is further reduced by GWE’s proprietary 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.