Search Results (3)

This article examines the impact of a new technical assistance (TA) and recognition program (BetterBev) on Massachusetts craft breweries’ adoption of pollution prevention/sustainability practices. The authors explore the following questions: How do technical assistance and recognition address the key barriers and promote P2/sustainability adoption? What are the outcomes and impacts of the implemented P2 practices? What specific P2/sustainability practices are most likely and least likely to be adopted by craft breweries receiving TA, and why? This study is based on 29 craft breweries in Massachusetts, U.S. Data was collected between November 2022 and March 2025 and included site visits; interviews with owners, founders, and head brewers; online research; and assessments of eight impact categories. This study found that providing TA was highly effective in encouraging participants to adopt new P2/sustainability practices (the 29 participants adopted 60 new P2/sustainability practices over two years). The TA helped overcome the main sustainability barriers for craft breweries—the lack of resources, time, and knowledge about available opportunities. MA breweries adopted most of their P2 practices in energy and CO₂ reduction, and the least in water and wastewater reduction. This study confirmed the importance of environmental information as a powerful driver for adopting P2/sustainability actions. Future initiatives should consider a train-the-trainer approach for scaling up P2/sustainability practices, where early adopters share their knowledge and experience with peers. Full article

An aerated greenhouse ecosystem, often referred to as a Living Machine^®, is a technology for biological wastewater treatment within a greenhouse structure that uses plants with their roots submerged in the wastewater. This system has a small footprint relative to traditional onsite wastewater treatment systems and constructed wetland, can treat high-strength wastewater, and can provide a high level of treatment to allow for reuse for purposes such as irrigation, toilet flushing, and landscape irrigation. Synthetic and actual craft beverage wastewaters (wastewater from wineries, breweries, and cideries) were examined for their treatability in bench-scale greenhouse ecosystems. The tested wastewater was high strength with chemical oxygen demands (COD) concentrations of 1120 to 15,000 mg/L, total nitrogen (TN) concentrations of 3 to 45 mg/L, and total phosphorus (TP) concentrations of 2.3 to 90 mg/L. The COD, TN, and TP concentrations after treatment ranged from below 125 to 560 mg/L, 1.5 to 15 mg/L, and below 0.25 to 7.8 mg/L, respectively. The results confirm the ability of the aerated greenhouse ecosystem to be a viable treatment system for craft beverage wastewater and it is estimated to require 54 and 26% lower hydraulic retention time than an aerobic lagoon and a low temperature, constructed wetland, respectively, the types of systems that would likely be used for this type of wastewater for onsite locations. Full article

Craft breweries release wastewater into the environment, posing serious environmental concerns. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are an attractive technology that has been used in industrial wastewater treatment. This study used a scalable system of nine MFCs (stacked) to treat 150 L of craft brewery wastewater (CBW). The CBW had 1831 ± 85 mg COD (chemical oxygen demand) L⁻¹. The hydraulic retention time was 5 days, with a COD removal percentage of 93 ± 1.8%. The total internal resistance of the stack was 204.8 ± 5.2 Ω at 26 ± 2 °C without the use of a metal catalyst; the reduction of oxygen was the limiting process. Finally, the sequence of treatments applied with this proposed system demonstrated its self-sustainability, which could be a viable option for the real-life conditions of this kind of wastewater. Further research is needed. Full article