Catering Waste Water Guide

Transcription

1 Catering Waste Water Guide Catering food waste generally contains putrescible animal by-products such as raw, cooked or processed meat, fish, dairy or bakery products. This is classified as a controlled waste which all producers have a legal duty of care to control and dispose of without harming the environment. 1.7 million tonne of commercial food waste is produced in the UK every year and it is estimated that 0.5 million tonne of this is disposed into the drainage network system. Fat, oil and grease (FOGc) constitute 13% of this wasted food and directly contribute to 150,000 sewer blockages throughout the UK every year. Straining - Screening - Separating

2 Catering Waste Authorisation The Environmental Protection Act 1990 requires that producers of controlled waste take all reasonable precautions to avoid knowingly causing or permitting controlled waste to be disposed without authorisation Commercial kitchen sinks and wash-ware equipment must discharge into the drainage system through preventative straining, screening or separating devices to ensure that there are no avoidable releases of contaminant particulates. Catering waste producers must check and keep proof that anyone they pass their waste to is authorised to take it, so as not to be held liable if it is found that their waste is disposed of illegally by methods such as fly-tipping or dumping into a drainage system without permission.

3 Catering Waste Water Compliance All discharges to drain require authorisation by a sewerage undertaker. The waste producer must receive written permission from either the mains foul sewerage provider (public) or from the local environmental authority subject to conditions being met by a treatment system (private). Catering operators duty of care requires reasonable precautionary measures to be implemented to reduce and remove catering waste food, fat, oil and grease. These measures should be visible to allow easy verification and inspection, and should include simple straining and screening devices, which are practical and conform to guidelines issued by the appropriate regulatory authority. Suppliers of modern, predominantly cooking appliances which have a cleaning outlet for disposal, can advise the user which preventative measures they adopt to ensure compliance with their duty of care Regulatory authorities may adopt the practical approach recommended by the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) which aims to determine tolerable quantities of fats, oils and greases which do not cause problems of clogging or treatment in drains and sewers.

4 Catering Waste Water Regulations The Waste Minimisation Act 1998 allows the waste collection or disposal authority to take whatever action it deems necessary to expedite the minimisation of any type of controlled waste. Regulators may consider pre-treatment technologies suitability at point of source inline with practical cost and space limitations; including any overlap between governing departments or conflicting standards involving multiple input parameters and variable working conditions. Good standard guidelines are preferably concerned with setting practical and achievable conditions such as factory-set pre-measured, controlled flow rates and space constraint considerations as opposed to hypothetical and generally unenforceable zero-tolerance criteria, which often prove counter productive. The UK Water Acts confer rights to make general provisions to protect the sewerage system; which apply to all discharges to sewer, irrespective of whether or not they are considered to be trade effluent. This includes conditions such as: an effluent pre-treatment plant may have to be installed and maintained in order to remove or reduce certain constituents in the trade effluent The maximum penalty upon prosecution for illegally disposing of waste is a fine of 50,000 and up to 12 months imprisonment in the Magistrates Court or 5 years imprisonment and unlimited fine at the Crown Court.

5 Waste Water Food Recovery The European standard EN1825-2:4 requires that commercial kitchen applications discharging catering waste water shall install straining or screening devices on the upstream, inlet side of a non-sludge retaining gravity grease separator. The straining or screening devices should be cleaned out on a daily basis to prevent putrefaction and should be installed in readily accessible locations (under-sink or combi-oven) to allow simple collection and removal. All internal straining, screening and separating waste food, fat, oil and grease devices should be completely sealed and odour tight according to EN12056 during normal operation. Straining baskets should have complete access and clearance for easy and hygienic removal. In circumstances where food, fat, oil or grease waste is to be recovered; for use in controlled animal pet food, the discharging outlet point of delivery to the drainage system should be clearly identified. Most discharge levels exceeding 150mm from ground and head height of 300mm can now readily be strained and captured for recovery. It is estimated that an average inadvertent discharge of typical catering food waste, which exceeds 1kg/m3 water is likely to result in an excess of 100mg/l fat, oil and grease within the trade effluent.

6 Waste Water Grease Recovery Kitchen plan layouts are ideally designed so that the identified prime contaminating drainage discharging equipment and appliances are grouped to allow optimum plumbing for contaminant containment. Approximately 95% of UK commercial catering establishments discharge their wastewater into the public mains drainage system. For plumbing installations in space constrained urban drainage layouts, it may only be possible to achieve partial compliance with EN and EN standard and building regulators may provide an allowance for this. It is estimated that less than 5% of existing public draining UK commercial catering premises neither have nor could readily install a grease separator into their plumbing or drainage system that would be fully compliant with EN and EN standards for gravity grease separators. Waste food, fat, oil & grease recovery effluent pre-treatment units and supplementary technologies may be used in sequence and in accordance with Directive 96/61/EC and Directive 2008/1/EC, which require that pollution should be prevented at source by using BAT (Best Available Technology). Gravity assisted devices, which utilize forces additional to gravity and fall outside of the scope of EN and EN1825-2; should be installed which positively contribute towards resource management.

7 Catering Waste Water The waste water footprint for wasted food in the UK is 280 litres per person per day; which is nearly twice the average daily UK household water use. Wet waste disposal units or macerators which are still used in households (who currently fall outside the scope of controlled waste), continue to contribute toward the waste food/water footprint. The UK alone wastes 6.2 billion cubic metres of water through food waste disposal every year. Global resources face a major challenge producing food for over 7 billion people on the planet and cannot afford to allow such huge quantities of water to simply go down the drain alongside this food waste. Commercial catering premises should actively seek to reduce their waste food/ water footprint by scraping and dry wiping plates and using sinks and washware appliances responsibly with straining, screening and separating devices. Unneccessary use of very hot water also results in waste water temperatures exceeding 43 C adding to a compounding waste of useful energy resource whereas the minimum waste water temperature of 31 C is generally all that is required in order to ensure decongealment of grease to allow capture and recovery. Thermostats should be adjusted accordingly. Supplementary pre-treatment waste water solutions can be used on filtered, stable; emulsified waste water discharge to help prevent de-emulsification or grease congealment in the down-steam pipework. The wastewater total life cycle can only be complete once the critical drainage transport link from point of discharge to treatment remains uninterrupted from blockage restrictions.

8 Cater Waste Guide This guide is designed to assist catering establishments achieve compliance with relevant legislation. However, it is not a replacement for legislation and compliance with this guide does not automatically guarantee compliance with all relevant legislation. It is the responsibility of the architect, developer, property owner and operator to be familiar with and act in accordance with all prevailing legal requirements. This guide may be used in the absence of specific local authority guidance from whom it is recommended that a record requesting specific guidance is sought and kept in accordance with CDM2007 and that any specific conditions required are notified to all waste water discharging equipment suppliers at the time of specification. Whilst every care has been taken in the preparation of this document, no liability can be accepted for any counsel or for any error or omission. Examples and equipment references are for illustrative purposes only and it remains the responsibility of the applicant to ensure that selected equipment and waste management plans meet the requisite standards. As a general Catering Waste guide, it is estimated that an average inadvertent discharge of typical catering food waste, which exceeds 1kg/m3 wastewater is likely to result in the trade effluent breaching the nominal hydrocarbon limit of 100mg/l. contact@caterwaste.com Waste food/water drain allowance :+ 2.0 Kg / m3 1-2 Kg / m Kg / m3 Straining - Screening - Separating