Water Reuse in the Food Industry: Quality of Original Wastewater Before Treatments

Abstract

This chapter introduces one of the most important emergencies in the world of food and non-food industries: the availability of clean and drinking water. Water use has more than tripled globally since 1950: water quality and its scarcity are increasingly recognised as one of the most important environmental threats to humankind. In addition, the food and beverage processing industry requires copious amounts of water. For these reasons, direct and indirect water reuse systems are becoming more and more interesting and promising technologies. Different reuse guidelines have been recently issued as the result of risk assessment and management approaches linked to health-based targets. Chemical and biological features of wastewaters originated from different food processing environments have to be carefully analysed and adequate countermeasures have to be taken on these bases in relation to the specific food processing activity.