Oak State Products
Wenona, Illinois
Intern: Olaoluwa Afolayan
Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville
Oak State Products is a manufacturer of baked products for food companies.
The Wenona facility is located 35 miles north of Bloomington. The company employs
over 400 people.
The intern was tasked with evaluating strategies to minimize the discharge
of industrial effluent to the local sanitary district.
Results:
The intern worked on the following projects:
- Identified wastewater from different areas of the facility that contributed
to the high slug loadings of BOD5 and TSS. The wastewater effluent is a
result of the cleaning process for the mixing equipment. Particular care
must be taken to clean the equipment.
- Provided assistance to the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center in
conducting a pilot trial that pretreated the wastewater with freeze-dried
microbes to reduce the organic loadings. The BOD5 levels in one tank,
which treated about 250 gallons of waste over seven days, dropped from
6,500 down to 650 mg/L. With an additional polishing tank, these numbers
would have been reduced further prior to discharge to the sanitary district.
- Further studies will be conducted to identify the most cost effective
technologies, equipment and methods for BOD and TSS reduction. Three
students from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will be
focusing their senior design project on the wastewater issue at the
facility this fall.
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