The mitigation of environmental impacts of high polluted effluents from tuna canning industry through eco-efficiency strategies

Food industry use high volume of water and energy to carry out their processes. Specifically, the fish canning industry generates effluents with high organic and saline loads, which complicates their suitable treatment before discharging to water bodies. The LIFE VERTALIM project has demonstrated the efficiency of a holistic solution (including technical, legislative, social, and environmental aspects) for the controlled integration of food industry wastewater from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the urban sanitation system. The implementation of low-cost innovative solutions, through the clean and eco-efficient production and wastewater pretreatment for fish canneries, has led to on average a reduction of 30% of the wastewater discharges to the environment and a reduction of food losses of up to 0.1%. Moreover, there has been a reduction of between 40% and 90% related to high organic load. These results allow the canneries to dispose their pretreated effluents to the urban sanitation system, avoiding the high costs of an industrial wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). During the project, a physical-chemical quality control has been achieved in the river waters as well as in the marine water surrounding the urban WWTP. In fact, a remarkable improvement of the river water quality has been measured.