Tatura Milk Industries

Tatura Milk Industries Ltd is a co-operative dairy company with close links to the dairy farmers that hold shares in the company. These links and reliance on the agricultural industry have led to a strong focus on reducing water use and water recycling.

Tatura Milk is supplied by approximately 330 dairy farms and processes approximately 450 million litres of milk each year. As a dairy processor, Tatura Milk must comply with various national and international food safety guidelines and standards. Many of these have requirements for the use of drinking water to ensure food safety is maintained during the manufacturing process.

Tatura Milk uses drinking water in the rehydration of ingredients, ultra-filtration plants, and for flushing product out of lines at the completion of a batch. It is also used for services that are part of the manufacturing process, such as chilled water for the refrigeration plant, and steam and hot water for the boiler. Water is also used for cleaning in place, whereby after 24 to 48 hours of production the whole plant is cleaned with water.

During 2005-2006, Tatura Milk used 997 million litres of town water, and recycled an estimated 130 million litres. Most of this water was discharged as trade waste to Goulburn Valley Water’s Tatura Waste Management Plant, where it is treated and used to irrigate pasture.

A Smart Water Fund grant was used to install a collection, monitoring and distribution system for pump seal water, so that the water could be re-used via the existing condensate distribution systems.

Tatura Milk installed a water capture and return distribution system to collect and transfer pump seal water to other onsite reuse applications, such as cooling towers and cleaning in place equipment:

• In the manufacturing process, water is pumped through pipes to create a seal. This water previously went down the drain as trade waste but is now pumped back into the condenser.
• Vacuum pumps use water for cooling. Now after use the hot water is pumped into the cooler and then reused in the vacuum pumps.

The system captures seal and cooling water from 33 pumps, nine vacuum pumps, three mechanical vapour recompressors and one homogeniser.

The water saving initiative installed by Tatura Milk achieved better results than predicted due to a better recovery of seal water. Total town water savings are 41.69 ML per year and trade waste discharge savings are 115.2 ML per year.