How much do you know about an Effluent Treatment Plant audit?

In the past one to two decades, retailers and brands put much focus on the chemical testing on the final products to fulfil regulatory requirements. In recent years, focus has shifted gradually from the end products to the manufacturing processes in respond to rising environmental protection law compliance in manufacturing countries, and higher awareness from the public on more comprehensive environmental performance of brands and retailers.

When looking into environmental performance of the manufacturing process, different approaches are employed, including self-assessment by suppliers or factories on environmental management system and chemical management policy, arranging trainings to suppliers and factories to raise their knowledge on this and conducting on-site environmental assessment of the facilities.

In most companies’ planning, however, we noticed that effluent treatment plants (ETP) are often overlooked. In this article, we are uncovering how an ETP audit is different from an environmental audit, what an ETP audit is and what suggestions we have for better performing ETP.

Q1: What is the difference between an ETP audit and an environmental audit?

The aim of an environmental audit is to have a clear view of the overall environmental performance of a factory including chemical management, waste management and other aspects. During an environmental audit, “wastewater management” is just one of many environmental aspects to assess. The auditor needs to allocate time for each of the assessment aspects.

For production facility with effluent treatment plant, it is essential to have laser-focus assessment of the plant’s performance as untreated or improperly treated wastewater carries high amount of chemicals, many of which are hazardous to the environment and human beings.

As a responsible corporate, ensuring good performance of the ETP is a critical part of the environmental policies.

During a Wastewater and ETP audit, an auditor is focused 100% on the assessment of the wastewater treatment plant, provide more in-depth technical analysis and offer a detailed report to the corporate on the performance of the plant.

Q2: What are assessed in an ETP audit?

Various parameters specific for an effluent treatment plant are examined. For example, the auditor will:

• Identify bypass lines (testing of wastewater from different tanks to compare the data, visit the factory periphery, etc.)
• Monitor the drainage system of the factory and compare this with drainage plan, e.g. how the line goes from production to ETP, whether all the lines from production are well connected, if drainage condition is good, etc.
• Ensure total wastewater volume is properly treated by doing comparison of factory’s total water consumption against the total amount of treated waster of four specific months, which are one month of peak season, one from off-peak season, the current month and one random month from previous 12 months.
• Assess the skills of the person-in-charge/ operators of wastewater testing, and the factory’s capability to control the water quality parameters and other ETP parameters.
• Check the availability of proper contingency measures (procedures, action plan) to ensure the factory is able to cope with emergency situations.

Q3: What are the common critical /major non-conformities related to the ETP?

Some common non-conformities are:

• Lack of knowledgeable managers to operate the ETP.
• Bypass lines to dispose of untreated industrial wastewater.
• No system (meter) to monitor the total water consumption of the factory.
• Meters are not functional/not accessible at ETP inlet/outlet to record data.
• Treated wastewater’ parameters are not within the legal limits.
• No or insufficient internal testing of wastewater parameters.
• ETP tanks not active / machineries not working (e.g. broken screen, mal-functioning blowers, high velocity in settling, etc.).

Q4: In case of non-conformities, what can the factories do to improve the performance?

There are different ways to improve the performance, and these are a few that are more accessible to the factories:

• Hire an expert or train the current ETP operators and managers about the key of ETP operation, such as water parameters testing, ETP maintenance and operation, etc.
• Purchase testing devices to monitor at least the core parameters (pH, TDS/TSS, DO, COD and temperature), and establish an equipped lab under supervision of a knowledgeable person.
• Start with the right beginning by imposing better control at production sections to minimise possibility of non-conformities at the later stage such as proper maintenance of equipment to reduce waste of water, replace obsolete machineries that consume more water, look for alternative chemicals which are less hazardous, regular inspection to fix water leaks and water wastage.

Q5: How can the ETP person-in-charge/ operators improve their knowledge about the treatment of wastewater?

They can begin by reading the ETP manual provided by the manufacturer completely to understand the machines and processes inside-out. It is also beneficial for them to take training, virtual format or on-site, on ETP operations and wastewater management to learn about best practices in the industry.

Untreated or improperly treated wastewater poses great threats to the environment and human settlement nearby, and corporates could find themselves in brand damage and financial risks when the situation is uncovered. The ETP assessment identifies what works and what doesn’t work well in the treatment process, and highlight what are the key aspects of a robust management system for the wastewater treatment.

In order to stay compliant and act responsibly, it is crucial for corporates to conduct effluent treatment plant audits and stay ahead in the roadmap to sustainability.

Read more about our effluent treatment plant audit services.