Online Total Nitrogen Analysis Of Reverse Osmosis Reject Water Reduces Permit Compliance Expense By $350,000 Annually At Beverage Bottling Plant

A common challenge for beverage bottling plants is managing high-volume Reverse Osmosis (RO) reject water that exceeds Total Nitrogen (TN) discharge permits. To maintain compliance, one facility in the northeastern United States was forced to haul off up to 36 million gallons of reject water per year to an advanced treatment facility, incurring significant expense. The seasonal variability in city makeup water nitrogen levels meant operators often hauled water that was unnecessarily clean.

By implementing real-time online TN analysis directly on the reject stream, the plant gained the ability to automatically make compliance-driven discharge decisions every 30 minutes. This precise, continuous monitoring allowed the facility to safely divert compliant reject water directly to the local public works. The result was a 50% reduction in annual reject water haul-off volume. This operational change is projected to generate annual cost savings of $300,000 from reduced hauling, plus the elimination of up to $50,000 in regulatory penalty risk. Learn how automated monitoring can turn a wastewater compliance burden into substantial operational savings.