Food and Kindred Products :
SIC Code 20

In 1994, 25 facilities in New Jersey with SIC Code 20 ("Food and Kindred Products") submitted a New Jersey Release and Pollution Prevention Report to the NJDEP describing their use of hazardous chemicals in 1993. Since plants with SIC Code 20 are considered Group Two facilities by the NJDEP, they were required to prepare a Pollution Prevention Plan and submit a Pollution Prevention Plan Summary by July 1, 1996. As part of the preparation of a Pollution Prevention Plan, facilities are asked to find and analyze pollution prevention options and set reduction goals for hazardous chemical nonproduct output (NPO) and use.

The following pages list some pollution prevention techniques compiled by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) that SIC Code 20 facilities may find useful to help set (and eventually meet) hazardous chemical NPO and use reduction goals.

Industry-Wide:

Here are some helpful pollution prevention and waste minimization methods which are common to many facilities in SIC Code 20.

• Use waste organics as animal feed.
• Reuse and recycle as much water as possible throughout the plant.
• Install water meters and read them on a regular basis.
• Use water sparingly in hosing and cleaning operations (use High-Pressure-Low-Volume water sprays).
• Utilize automatic shut-off valves.
• Develop a leak prevention program for valves, pumps, and piping equipment.
• Drain or squeegee all raw material and product from tanks and vats before cleaning. Minimize loss of product and waste of raw materials.
• Segregate waste streams and recycle nonpolluted water.
• Monitor the treatment plant for biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) on a weekly basis.
• Use dry cleanup methods. Avoid hosing material into drains if possible.

Dairy Industry:

Here are some pollution prevention and waste minimization methods which are common to the dairy industry.

• Use post-cleaning rinses as make-up water for sanitizing and/or cleaning.
• Regenerate used lubricants.
• Instruct personnel in the proper operation and handling of equipment.
• Mark all valves clearly, especially multiport, so that it is practically impossible for inexperienced help to turn the valve the wrong way.
• Handle with extreme care all sanitary fittings, valves, rotary seals, pump parts, and filler parts during every phase of operation to prevent marring which may cause leaks.
• Provide accurate temperature controls on plate, tubular, or surface coolers to prevent freezing-on, especially with glycol systems.
• Install suitable liquid level controls with automatic pump stops, or other devices at all points where overflows are likely to occur.
• Never fill cheese vats, ice cream mix vats, or cooling tanks to such a high level that spillage will occur when the product is agitated.
• Repair or replace worn-out or obsolete equipment or parts of equipment, including sanitary valves, fittings, and pumps. When a leak cannot be repaired during processing, buckets should be provided so that the product is not allowed to go down the floor drain.
• Keep foam from going into sewers because it contains a considerable amount of milk solids. Common sources of excessive foaming are open-type separators, splashing when filling tanks, air sucked in through leaky connections in lines under partial vacuum, through leaky packing and through faulty rotary seals or pumps.
• When unloading tank trucks, avoid spillage from the sanitary pipe or hose connections.
• Eliminate spillage, rather than just wash it away after it has occurred.
• Avoid washing spilled sugar into the sewer. Sugar will pollute the stream just as much as milk solid will.
• Provide a foolproof whey collection system and avoid leaks from valves and fittings on whey lines which will result in ultimate loss of whey to the sewer and in floor corrosion.
• Provide standby pumps for pumping whey from cheese vats to storage tanks in case of power or pump failure.
• Provide whey storage tanks of twice the maximum daily volume to avoid tank overflow.
• Sweep up all spilled cheese curd particles from the floor. Do not wash them down the sewer.
• Install pipelines so that they are properly supported to eliminate vibration-induced leaking joints (where welded lines are not used) and to ensure that the lines are properly pitched to ensure draining of the lines.
• Maintain all cases, conveyors, and stackers in proper operating condition to avoid jamming and subsequent loss of product from spillage and/or broken packages.
• Turn off water hoses when not in use. Hoses equipped with automatic shut-off valves should be used to avoid excessive water usage.
• Keep cappers for plastic and glass bottle fillers in first class condition to avoid breakage and product loss. Similarly, paper filling machines should be maintained in order to avoid jams and product spillage. Fillers should be equipped with drip shields and the spills collected to avoid product going to the drain.
• Check filler valves to see that all containers are filled to correct capacity and temperature. In glass bottles, filling to the cap seat may create spillage when the milk warms up and expands, forcing cap past the cap seat.
• Carefully handle bottles and paper containers during casing, stacking, loading and delivery to avoid product losses to drain.
• Avoid incorporation of cleaning compounds and/or sanitizing solutions into milk products.
• Eliminate steam-water mixing tees for making hot water and use regular hot water systems to permit use of shut-off valves at the end of the hose lines. This can result in a 40 to 60% reduction of wastewater volume.
• Thoroughly drain all lines, tanks, and processing vats before rinsing. Rinse before product dries on surface.
• Reduce losses from high volume pasteurizing units through recycling.
• Make an effort to develop markets for whey solids, as well as processes to extract and produce proteins and carbohydrates from whey.
• Fit bag type filters in the floor drains in the cottage cheese room.
• Aerate wastewater with compressed air to lower BOD levels.