Making Carbonated Soft Drinks and Juices Disposable

Free, anonymous advice is not a very reliable source, since no one knows where you are, the actual chemical makeup of the drinks you are dealing with, the laws and regulations applicable to your operation, etc.

I suggest that you hire someone who is recognized as an authority in that field by the regulatory agencies in your area, wherever that may be.

Frankly, I'm surprised that there is no one on the staff of the company who knows this. After all, someone had to come up with the concoctions in the first place.

First thing you need to worry about is local sewer bylaws and ordinances governing disposal- which should be to sanitary, NOT storm drains!

Secondly, can any of this be donated to a local food bank, shelter or other humanitarian project that would provide a community return on the production investment made for this, as well as possibly being a PR benefit? Other options are seeing if local farmers can use it for livestock rations or if an ethanol plant could use it as feedstock.

If you still have to dispose of it, my recommendation is to use Sodium hydroxide instead of Soda ash so you don't generate more CO2, causing foaming and possible overflow (been there, done that!). Use a vessel with good agitation and run it to make the solution "flat". Then adjust the pH as needed- any residual dissolved CO2 will be carbonate/ bicarbonate ion afterwards. Dilution should be done afterwards, if needed.

Sugar, water, some yeast? hey looks like you have the primary ingredients for the Christmas party....

Why not donate this excess food before it spoils? There are far too many hungry people everywhere to deliberately throw away good food.

If these items are past exp date they must be legally disposed of....While it's true that hungry people will retrieve these items from the dumpster, they can not legally be given to anybody.....

You can donate them before they expire. (If they are OK to consume)

I think you need some production planning... Why do you have to throw away so much products?

They have defects? Are contaminated? Not enough sales of the product?

I hope you can figure out not only how to dispose them properly, but also how to manage your production so you do not have to dispose so much product.

Good luck!

I have still never seen the movie but based upon this reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy I think you should store them for a while until "that the nation's crops are irrigated with a Gatorade-like sports drink named Brawndo". You could then sell all the old drinks to be used for irrigation.

Don't dismiss this idea too fast. I have watched the evening news and it looks like we are moving in that direction.

Maybe they could sell it to Monsanto to use to irrigate their GMO crops.

NOT the storm drains, they run directly to places like the ocean! if you simply put them down the drain you raise a waste water's BOD level( more than they can quickly handle), its advisable to contact your wastewater treatment facility and inform them of your problem so a responsible plan can be formed and followed. good luck.

Have you tried to sell it to a fuel ethanol manufacturer? That is a lot of free sugar.

miller gerber sa-

First thing to do is contact the local sewer authority and find out what the permissible discharge limits are. From there work out a suitable procedure for treating the liquids for sewer discharge within those limits. This is a key economic incentive since it will probably be extremely expensive to dispose of it through a disposal company.

Also find out from the sewer authority how they charge for out of spec disposals and in spec disposals.

A local very large juice processor (finished products) treats them with an aerobic or anaerobic (don't know which) treatment that they process in open lined ponds/aerators. The only problem they have with it is the neighbors complaining about the stench it produces. Board of Health is after them to fix it. They are in the end of the design phase for the improvements.

In the 60's at least, carbonated drinks went directly to the regional sewage treatment plant. Many a day during my summer vacations from school I worked as a fork lift driver in a soda factory. On slow days several of us would use "church keys" to open cans of out of spec soda and dump that down a slop sink. In order to prevent boredom we also got into soda fights when the boss was elsewhere. Perhaps consult with a carbonated soda producers association such as the "American Beverage Association". This surely isn't their first time a member has had the same problem

Good Luck, Old Salt

We used to burn things like that in our trash to steam plant ( small scale).One of the things they said you could burn was juice, you may want to check into something like that, when we burned product with sugar it burnt nice.

What does the AHJ say? -- JHF

(1) Never put product with high BOD into storm drains.

(2) Read your operating permit for wastewater if in the US and comply.

(3) Make all attempts to re-market the off-product.

(4) Reduce wastage if you are the company producing these products, this sounds like bad economics.

(5) If disposal is only remaining option, then strip the CO2 in such a way as to recover and re-use the gas(es) involved, reduce the volume of the waste if at all possible (RO comes to mind). Then either dispose the concentrated waste other than sewer or landfill, if you can find a taker. Otherwise you might have to dilute the "flat" product after neutralization with caustic soda (not soda ash), and legally discharge a higher volume to the sewer, based on probable limits on BOD.

Why not just stop making off-spec product in the first place? The disposal problem and the associated costs to the business then go away with no impact on the environment.

didn't I just say that, come on guys, at least read my posts, I don't care if you vote me up or down, just hear me out.