Reduction of water consumption in waste water treatment systems in the automotive industry

Abstract

The automotive industry is a major consumer of clean water. The automotive industry uses a large amount of oil-based products, paint, synthetic liquids, and as a part of the car manufacturing process. The use of these products in different production processes leads to the generation of wastewater, which, depending on the process itself, may contain different types of pollution. Depending on the type of waste water pollution, automotive industries use different types of treatments of wastewaters. After the treatment, wastewaters are discharged into the recipient, and new amount of clean water is used in technological process. Water problems, such as increases in water stress and deterioration of water quality in rivers, lakes and other water sources, are important issues from perspective of risk in automotive industries. The automotive industry establishes its water environment policy, which involves comprehensively purify water and return it to the environment and also thoroughly reduce the amount of water used. The aim of this paper is to present possibilities for reducing the consumption of clean water by implementing various initiatives such as collecting rainwater to reduce industrial water usage and wastewater recycling to reduce amounts withdrawn from water sources. The paper presents possible clean water savings, which is replaced with recycled wastewater and collected rainwater in the manufacturing process.