Tate & Lyle recently broke ground on a new waste-water treatment plant at our texturant production facility in Van Buren, US, and joined the Alliance for Water Stewardship
At Tate & Lyle we rely on water for our operations and supply chain. We’re mindful that water is a shared resource and that we must use it in a way that’s sustainable. That’s why we set a 2030 target to reduce our water use intensity by 15%.
Reducing water use intensity within our operations is challenging given that, as a producer of ingredients for the food industry, we rightly work to strict constraints on how we can recycle and reuse water. Continuously developing plans to achieve our target means our teams are having to push themselves further, understanding the ways our sites use water and the scope for using it more efficiently.
We have recently joined the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS), giving Tate & Lyle colleagues access to global best practices, collaborative initiatives, and innovative strategies to improve water efficiency across our facilities. This partnership also presents new opportunities for colleagues to engage in water stewardship initiatives, further integrating sustainability into our operations.
Lowering our Van Buren facility’s water use by a third
At our texturant production facility in Van Buren, Arkansas, US, our capital projects team has been working with the site team to transform its wastewater treatment.
Through Tate & Lyle’s Sustainability by Design programme, which drives sustainability improvements across our network, our Global Operations engineers found an opportunity to reuse around one third of Van Buren’s total water use via a new wastewater treatment plant.
By introducing a new wastewater treatment plant, the site team will be able to unlock additional opportunities to clean the water used when making corn-based starches back to ‘reuse’ quality, in line with industry standards. Most of the water is used in the heating and then cooling of the starch while it's being made, as temperature change is one of the parts of the process that brings out the desired effects in the finished product.
This water, instead of being cleaned and then discharged in line with local regulations, will be cleaned and reused, with no product contact, in the cooling tower as ‘make-up’ water, replacing water that evaporates. In doing so, we will no longer need to draw on freshwater for this purpose, ultimately reducing city water usage.
Mason Mallonee, Tate & Lyle’s global sustainability engineering lead: “Since the Sustainability by Design programme was introduced in 2023, sustainability implications are considered for every capital expenditure project. Where needed, a sustainability engineer is consulted to help to introduce changes via new technology, processes or partnerships, that will reduce emissions, water or energy use.”
Building of the new wastewater system began in February and is expected to be operational in 2026. This construction builds on progress at Van Buren delivered in 2023 with a 13% reduction in water use intensity.
Continues Mason: “In this case, we will transform Van Buren’s water use and also see how we can apply this approach and lesson learned to our other sites to make further progress towards our global water use target.”