Life Cycle Assessment and Management of Water Use in Selected Breweries in Nigeria

Abstract

Capacity to promote resource conservation and efficiency must be embraced in all nations of the world. Nigerian brewery is one of the fastest growing branches of manufacturing Company and intrinsically water intensive industry in Nigeria. It has five brewing plants. Brewing was one of the first commercial scale food processing industries. The modern brewery can produce a stable product even though raw materials, plant types and the scale of operation are changing. It is time to take our use of water much more seriously. This paper assessed the water use in selected breweries in Oyo and Osun state by using Ibadan brewery and Ilesha brewery as case study. It has been discovered that the water supply in brewery is grossly insufficient for the available demand. The methodology employed for this research work was questionnaires, field study and water audit tool. A combination of purposive and random sampling techniques was used to select those that are relevant to this research work. A holistic approach was developed which would not only move the wastewater from brewery out of sight but would reduce the volume and ensure effective disposal in an environmentally manner. It has been concluded that the efficiency levels of the two breweries can at best be described as medium, with rather wide variations in and between countries and breweries. The two breweries are still far from the accepted international best practice benchmark level of 6.5 hl/hl, let alone the best technology level of 4 hl/hl. Presently, Ibadan brewery is having 10.22 hl of water per beer while Ilesha brewery is having 8.75 hl of water per beer. The two breweries are not meeting up to the standard, but we can say that the efficiency of water use at Ilesha brewery is better than that of Ibadan brewery. The financial implication of water loss can be minimized if the management method is improved for maximum effectiveness and optimal benefit.