Green Gold from Dairy Industry: A Self-Sustained Eco-Friendly Effluent Treatment Plant

Abstract

The major bottleneck of dairy effluent treatment plant operation is the generation of 10 m3 of nutrient rich wastewater per m3 of milk processed resulting in an annual production of 7.93 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2 e) gas during treatment in a 7–8 step process. It is an expensive, non-ecofriendly, laborious process which is often not adoptable by the small segment installations. A carefully selected tailor-made bacterial consortium in biofilm reactor within 4 h of incubation in a single step operation under ambient condition could transform the total volume of wastewater into ammonia rich liquid biofertilizer generating 0.79 tons/year CO2 e gas. This biofertilizer replaces the use of fresh water and chemical fertilizer for agriculture, producing economic crops at par with chemical fertilizer. In certain cases, the production of crops is increased substantially over chemical fertilizer based growth. It reduced carbohydrate content of tuber crops. The generated liquid biofertilizer can overcome the shortage in fodder production without using chemical fertilizer and fresh water, hence solving one of the major concerns for sustaining the expansion of dairy industry, hence making dairy effluent treatment plant (ETP) operation an eco-friendly, self-sustainable operation.