KBL Sets Up a Water Recycling Plant in Kisumu

Kenya Breweries Limited (KBL) has put up aKSh 4 million water treatment plant in Kisumu to improve production efficiency.

Shadrack Muloma, the Sites Utilities and Facilities Manager said the initiative is aimed at helping the company recycle water generated from its cleaning processes in order to reduce the volume intake from Kisumu Water and Sanitation Company (KIWASCO).

Mr. Muloma added that the move will reduce KBL dependence on KIWASCO, therefore increasing the volume of water available for Kisumu residents.

He also said that this will also help the brewer achieve its sustainable goals by diverting the expenditure on the water to other domestic and commercial needs in the company.

The project which is already complete will see the plant cut down water usage by 50 percent, reduce greenhouse emissions and return 100 percent of water used in the final product.

“Once the project is commissioned and when we get water from this recovery plant, we will be using almost 1.5 liters of water per every liter of beer produced,” Muloma said.

Normally, the company uses almost 3 liters of water for every one liter of beer.

The company official also noted that the recycling plant will significantly reduce the amount of effluent released into the public sewer.

He noted that the new plant is designed to meet the East African Standards for water (KS12 2014) as well as the UN standards for portable water.

It is also in line with the efforts to set the 100 million litres of beer per year as an industrial benchmark for the region, where several industries have been accused of contributing to the death of Winam Gulf of L. Victoria.

In order to maximize the efficiency of the three-phase wastewater plant, the condensed water from the cooling systems will be tapped for a repeat process since the entire process is optimized to use as less water as possible.

On the other hand, the company is also relying on the harvesting of carbon produced during the beer fermentation process, which sees KBL produce up to 9 tonnes of carbon daily.

This carbon is considered to be purer than the mined carbon and saves the brewer KSh 47 per kilogram.