Published on 07/05/2011
First Update 15/01/2018
The high BOD from distilleries has been a cause of major environmental concern over the years. They have also been covered under the Corporate Responsibility for Environmental Protection 2003, in India, wherein it has been provided that a system of bank guarantees and an action plan be put in place to implement the following options/recommendations mutually accepted by the regulators and industry.
1.        Spent wash to be utilized for compost making with press mud/Agriculture residue/Municipal wastes.
2.        Spent wash to be concentrated and dried/incinerated.
3.        Effluent to be used for irrigation only after Biomethanation, two stage secondary treatment and dilution with process water.
4.        Effluents (BOD<2500 mg/L) to be discharged in a controlled manner into the sea only after Biomethanation and secondary treatment so that D.O. does not fall below 4 mg/L in the mixing zone.
5.        To be used in fertiirrigation as one time controlled application on land after detailed study.
6.        Achieve zero effluents discharge in inland surface waters by December 2005.
It was also decided that new stand alone distilleries and expansions of existing distilleries will not be given environmental clearance unless they achieve zero effluent discharge in surface/ground water.
The AIDA has compiled data from 233 Distilleries across the country in 2006. Based on this data,101 distilleries had achieved 100% utilization of spent wash,17 gave incomplete information, 34 achieved 50 to 75% utilization and 22 distilleries were closed. (aidaindia.org/its08 and cpcb.nic.in).