Slaughterhouse wastewater assessment and best practices advocacy for effective water management

Global meat production boosted by the declined feed costs and improved animal genetics in the recent decades. Thus, the meat processing industry significantly accounts voluminous water consumption among food and beverage sector, which has turned into a potential challenge in water scarce countries like Eritrea. In the context of that, a weekly assessment on water usage and waste-water generation for twelve consecutive weeks was performed at Barka Canneries slaughterhouse (BCSH) in Asmara, which possess two slaughterhouses (SH1 and SH2) of different capacities. The study revealed that the average specific water consumption for BCSH was about 325 L/slaughtered animal, while the specific effluent wastewater estimated as 337 L/slaughtered animal. In other words, the average daily water consumption estimated as 24,361 L while the average daily effluent wastes remain at 25,306 L. However, the detailed assessment on each operation of BCSH reveals that about 77.08% of water consumed by the slaughterhouse-1 (SH1), primarily in flush cleaning whereas the remaining 22.92% of consumed in slaughterhouse-2 (SH2), mainly tripery and vehicle washing areas. The study further extended to recommend suitable options for minimizing fresh water use and corresponding effluents for maintaining appropriate water practices at BCSH, which inherently establish its sustainable production. However, further annual assessments could lead to configure more precise estimations by accounting local seasonal variations in meat consumptions.