Australian red meat processing facilities can produce significant volumes of wastewater during slaughtering and cleaning operations. This wastewater stream is typically characterised by highly variable levels of suspended solids, organic matter and nutrient compounds, sometimes at concentrations more than four times greater than domestic sewage. It is important to treat this wastewater before discharging it into the environment or sewers.

This project aimed to investigate a new system for treating meat processing wastewater – one that incorporates a high-rate sequencing batch reactor (SBR) process to remove C and nutrients; an anaerobic digestion (AD) process to stabilise the production of sludge and bioenergy (methane); and an anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) process to eliminate residual nitrogen (N).