CIRCULAR ECONOMY IN THE HANDLING OF COFFEE HONEY WATER: CASE OF A COFFEE COOPERATIVE

Abstract

The activity of coffee production, specifically that which is carried out by small producers, generates liquid waste, called honey water, which without treatment contaminates soils and waters, before which, it was proposed to develop a technological protocol for the treatment of honey water from the wet process of coffee through the use of organic polymers and from this, use the treated water for the irrigation of coffee plantations and the solid residue that comes out to elaborate food of fish. It was found that the treatment with organic polymers achieved a reduction of 80% of the levels and/or the absence of the indicator in 11 of 15 physicochemical and microbiological indicators analyzed. Likewise, the implementation of a drip irrigation module with the treated water, using 2 LPH drippers was validated, and the solid residues or sludge obtained from the honey water treatment performed well as a by-product for the production of fish feed.