Waste Treatment at the Rath Packing
Company
MERLIN J. ANDERA, Superintendent By-Products Division
GENE R. FOSS, Manager Analytical Laboratory
HOWARD A. BRANDELAND, Sanitary Engineer
Rath Packing Company
Waterloo, Iowa
INTRODUCTION
Handling of liquid wastes has been, and will be, a continuing effort in the
meat packing industry. While what we are presenting here today will perhaps not
be unique or earth shaking, it may be applicable to problems in your own industry
or situation.
Our initial declaration of war on water wastes at The Rath Packing Company
began in the late '30's. At this time we were faced with two alternatives for handling
waste waters --(1) we could build our own disposal facilities, or (2) direct our effluent to the municipal disposal plant, which, at that time was under construction.
After much deliberation, the latter avenue was chosen. We, therefore, proceeded to erect pre-treatment facilities at our plant. These consisted of four
100,000 gal basins equipped with skimming and sweeping facilities. These basins
were designed to handle all of our production waters. Sanitary sewage, however,
by-passed these basins and went directly to the city sewers. After passing through
the settling basins, the effluent was directed to that portion of the municipal disposal plant that had been designed and constructed to take care of this type of material, and this portion of the municipal disposal plant was paid for by Rath. We
thereby set the municipal plant as a barrier between the Rath Packing plant and
the river. Operation of this portion of the municipal plant was compensated for by
a reasonable charge based on hydraulic and BOD loadings.
Basically, we are using the same facilities and following the same procedures
today, except for some additional installations which we will mention later.
In the early '40's we had a daily production flow of five MGD which allowed
us an average detention time in the settling basins of approximately 120 min and
yielded an effluent going to the city containing 1200 mg/l BOD.
As the years progressed, our facilities appeared to be inadequate. As a result, about 15 years later, a concentrated effort was made to reduce our hydraulic
and BOD loadings. This effort was directed not by limitations specified by the
municipal disposal plant, but by the fact that these heavy wastes meant dollars
down the drain.
With this in mind, this paper will attempt to show you what can be done toward reducing sewage losses with limited capital expenditures.
As you are aware, packing house wastes lend themselves to substantial improvements because they are reasonably heavy in BOD loadings, hence, carry a
good opportunity for reduction.
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