August 9th, 1999
Mad River Brewing Company continues to forge ahead with its award-winning waste reduction program. Moving toward a zero emission brewery, construction of a low-impact wastewater pretreatment installation is now underway. Utilizing primarily off-the-shelf components, we will be reducing the biological oxygen demand and total suspended solids of our wastewater by nearly 99%. Mad River Brewing will soon be able to treat up to 10,000 gallons of wastewater per day, consuming less than 3⁄4 horsepower of electrical energy.
The pretreatment train will generate beneficial by-products, such as modified bio-solids suitable for soil amendment. In addition, Mad River will be growing plants for compost feedstock, and is looking toward producing commercially valuable crop species. The final stage of the renewable bio-remediation beds will be non-hazardous fill material for construction and landscaping.
“We have even been able to find recycled ground-up concrete for grading and construction fill. It’s a perfect fit for our low-impact philosophy,” says brewmaster Bob Smith. “With 97% of our solid waste diverted from land fill, we are seeing a big payoff.”