Experiences of Cannery and Poultry
Waste Treatment Operations
LOUIS C. GILDE, Manager-Engineering
Water Administration
Campbell Soup Company
Camden, New Jersey 08101
INTRODUCTION
Campbell Soup Company has 30 plants, 20 of which are located in toe United
States and four in Canada. These plants are spread across the country and are located in all types of geographical and political situations. Hardly a single plant is
duplicated in the source of water supply or means of waste disposal. The waste
treatment facilities are either community-owned, jointly-owned by the Company
and the community, or entirely Company-owned. These facilities incorporate
almost every type of treatment system known. My discussion today will be limited
to toe highlights of treatment facilities in North America at two major soup processing plants and four poultry processing operations.
To acquaint you with toe background of Campbell Soup Company, at soup
processing plants we process all varieties of some forty soups, besides various
types of Deans, spaghetti, and other products the year round. Although over 100
different products are processed, the waste effluent for ten months out of the year
is relatively uniform. There are no major seasonal operations except for the two
months -- primarily August and September -- when processing facilities are almost entirely devoted to tomato products.
The poultry operations are geared for a multi-purpose program: 1) to provide
poultry parts for our Swanson TV Brand Dinners, and 2) to provide chicken meat
for our soup processing plants.
SPRAY IRRIGATION SYSTEM
Paris, Texas
Typical of our soup plants is the operation at Paris, Texas which consists of a
plant of approximately 22 acres under roof, a self-contained, complex operation
where we start with raw materials and ship out finished product. This is a highly
integrated operation containing its own can manufacturing operations as well as
warehouse storage facilities. The wastes come from many processes in the plant
washing equipment, washing vegetables, cooling cans, and food preparation in
general.
The waste at the Paris, Texas plant has pretreatment of grease recovery, and
10-mesh screening prior to being pumped to toe spray irrigation field. The gravity grease separator is equipped with top skimming and bottom sludge removal.
The waste systems are kept separate as much as possible, with grease-bearing
waste in one pipe system and vegetable-bearing waste in another system. Following the grease recovery system, toe two wastes are combined and go to rotating
drum screens.    These drum screens are four ft in diameter and eight ft long, and
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