Smithfield Foods Case Study

The first and second day at Smithfield Foods Inc. included a brief tour of the entire facility along with a comprehensive overview of company policies which highlighted factors like attendance, safety, production schedules, and environmental policies. Post the employee orientation, a strategy was developed to tackle pollution prevention projects at the plant. The first project is the reduction of brine discharge into the plant wastewater discharge stream. The aim is to reduce the chloride concentration from 649 mg/L to 500 mg/L. It is important to note that incdences like brine overflow, floor cleaning and equipment cleaning can result in brine levels as high as 1000 mg/L, putting the Junction City waste water treatment facility at a risk of …show more content…
An alternative suggested is manual measurement of brine discharge at different locations over a period of a week or two (Tedious but possible). The automation of the makeup brine/brine pasteurization system for the brine chiller is being explored as a P2 project that will reduce the risk of accidental chloride discharge, a common occurrence at the plant. Secondly, there is a large potential of waste heat generation from the oven zone two and three. The water stream used to control the humidity in zone two of the ovens uses close to 10 percent of the plants total water usage. A 1 percent reduction in this water used could save over 5,000 gallons of water daily. Temperature measurements of working streams need to be completed in order to complete a thermodynamic analysis for waste heat recovery (WHR). Additionally, waste heat from two Ingersoll Rand rotary screw compressors could be used to heat water for the restrooms. Moving on, the installation of variable frequency drive (VFD) for the hot water pumps is a straightforward project that is expected to save 30 to 40 percent of energy utilization and is expected to be implemented over the