Asia Pacific Breweries (APB) Singapore, a producer of local libations such as Guinness, Heineken, and Tiger Beer, the company will build a S$1.8 million (US$1.32 million) water reuse treatment plant in Singapore. The facility, which will be located on the company grounds in Tuas, will aid the large-scale brewery lower their water consumption, and is set to be completed by December 2017.
According to APB, the water treatment plant will allow the company to treat an estimated 66,750 cbm of water annually, which also accounts for around 11 per cent of the brewery’s annual water consumption.
During the groundbreaking ceremony held recently, managing director of APB, Samson Wong, said that the firm has plans to bring its water consumption down by 30 per cent by 2020, according to The Straits Times report.
“We have been assessing water-related risks since 2010 and focused our immediate efforts on the 23 breweries in water-stressed areas,” a statement from APB Singapore reportedly goes. “By the end of 2015, 20 of these sites had completed a Source Water Protection Plan.”
Water treatment at the plant will consist of a number of integrated technologies, including reverse osmosis (RO), to enable the water to be reused. Already, water treatment plants in the nation use RO to produce NEWater, one of Singapore’s water sustainability strategies, and which meets up to 40 per cent of the country’s present water needs.
The treated water, however, will not be used to produce beer, but will be utilised in cooling the towers, general washing, as well as irrigation.
According to WaterWorld, the move is becoming increasingly common in the industry, with major breweries using reused water onsite, but not using the treated water in the manufactured beer.
The project will be handled in collaboration with APB, the National University of Singapore (NUS), and PUB, the national water agency in Singapore. Additionally, it is backed by Singapore’s National Research Foundation under the Competitive Research Programme (Water).
“We hope that with projects like this, we can also inspire ourselves more on this sustainable journey and also our [industry] partners…to also look deeper into their sustainability agenda,” Wong said.
Sources: The Straits Times, WaterWorld
