Fitorremediação de soro de leite no sistema de wetlands construídas - teste de conceito

Abstract

The southwest of Paraná, besides being a large producer of milk, is also a large producer of cheese, being responsible for much of the national production. In the production of cheese, large amounts of whey are generated, which from the environmental point of view can be considered harmful due to its high pollution load and the difficulty in treating this effluent. From a food standpoint, whey can be seen as beneficial, since it can be used as raw material for the production of several dairy products, such as yogurts and whey protein. Mainly in small cheese dairies and family farms, there is no way to use whey as raw material due to the lack of technology, equipment and structure, and the alternative found is the inadequate disposal. Based on this, the present work performed a proof-of-concept test and proposed a treatment of diluted whey, through phytoremediation in constructed wetland systems of subsurface flow with the cultivation of vetiver grass, aiming for an economically feasible treatment alternative for small producers. The proposal proved to be efficient and showed moderate reductions in some parameters such as COD and total solids present in the whey, however the reductions were not sufficient to meet the effluent discharge limits established by CONAMA 430/2011, requiring further treatment steps.