The general purpose of this paper is to investigate, through the literature, the water pollution impact caused by the wastes from the beverage industry and the methods available to combat the associated problems. The size of each industry is discussed along with production processes, wastewater sources and effluent characteristics. Wastewater management techniques are described in terms of in-plant recycling, by-product recovery and end-of-pipe treatment along with the economics of treatment. The malt liquor, malting, soft drink, and flavoring industries primarily dispose of their effluents in municipal sewers. In-plant recycling and by-product recovery techniques have been developed in these industries to reduce their raw waste load. The wine and brandy and distilled spirits industries in many cases must treat their own effluent so they have developed wastewater management systems including industry-owned treatment plants that yield good effluents. The technology to adequately treat rum distillery wastewater has not been demonstrated. The information basis for this paper was a literature search, an effluent guidelines report done for EPA, limited site visits, personal communications and an unpublished report conducted for EPA that included questionnaire surveys of the industries.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 100-108).