Monitoring the performance of covered anaerobic ponds in the treatment of abattoir waste

Abstract

Churchill Abattoir Pty Ltd (CA) is a beef abattoir and rendering facility that has operated for 43 years as a Government entity, and for the past 11 years as a private enterprise. Since the changeover, there have been significant improvements in CA’s environmental performance. In response to improving waste treatment and minimisation, CA has developed a novel covered anaerobic pond design for the treatment of abattoir waste water. This design consists of five smaller ponds arranged in a cell configuration which has been driven by a number of factors including, manageability (for desludging ponds) and ease of removing and applying covers. Industry design and management standards are based on generalized metrics for anaerobic ponds rather than industry specific data. To inform pond design an intensive study of pond behaviour will be performed on the covered anaerobic ponds. This paper gives an overview of the literature reported on the use of anaerobic ponds in the treatment of high strength waste water and outlines the monitoring approach that will be undertaken to assess the behaviour and performance of these novel anaerobic ponds.