Coffee Processing Wastewater Management: An Overview

Globally, one amongst the major agro-based industry contributing significantly is Coffee. Coffee growing estates use water for pulping and the wastewater generated from coffee pulping activity is generally discharged to the water bodies. The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of effluents from traditional wet coffee processing plants on the water quality. Coffee fruits are processed by two methods, wet and dry process. The wet processing produces a drink of higher quality and has the advantage of reducing the drying space area and time required. However, this preparation step generates high volume of coffee wastewater as it involves utilizing large volumes of water with concurrent generation of wastewater. Throughout wet processing, coffee fruits generate enormous quantities of high strength wastewater. The so generated wastewater is characterized by high concentrations of organic matter, low pH, nutrients, suspended matter associated with odor and dark color with high chemical oxygen demand and biochemical oxygen demand requiring systematic treatment before disposal. The inadequate disposal of the coffee wastewater into environment directly without proper management and handling will pose aa pollution risk to receiving water body. Efforts have made by various researchers to evolve an alternative method for the treatment of coffee pulping waste and the same is discussed in this paper.