Stellar
Assembly Line
🧀 Conceptualizing the sustainable dairy plant of the future
Depending on the type of dairy processing plant — cheese, milk, butter, etc. — the Stellar Group makes specific recommendations. “In cheese factories, there’s an opportunity to recover the water and use for other purposes like hot water, potable water. This will help to reduce biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) for wastewater,” Kolla, Goode and Smallwood suggest. “Solar panels will provide as an alternative source to reduce energy costs and a combined heat and power (CHP) system, also known as cogeneration, will recover heat from the systems (cooling tower, heat exchangers) and produce an alternative energy source.”
Kolla notes that once the factory is built, it can be extremely expensive to retrofit it into a sustainable factory. However, “It’s very cost effective to design the factory from day one with a sustainable strategy,” he advises. “Leverage state and federal government energy rebate programs. Some states provide incentives based on energy used per ton of product.”