Blog
How a River Catching Fire Led to Cleaner Water
In 1969, the Cuyahoga River in Ohio caught fire. The blaze caught the attention of the national media, and Time magazine described the Cuyahoga as a river that “oozes,” rather than flows. There were no…
How Narragansett Bay Reaped the Rewards of Wastewater Pretreatment
The damage that grease and other pollutants can inflict on the environment is well documented, but few cases illustrate this as well as Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island. Narragansett Bay is a prime example of…
Why Rural Food Service Establishments Should Pretreat
If you live in a rural area, chances are you use a septic system to treat your wastewater. If that’s the case, you’re probably careful about what goes down the drain and into the tank…
Schools require pretreatment options that meet unique challenges
A packed-to-the-gills restaurant during dinner rush doesn’t hold a candle to the hustle and bustle — both in and out of the kitchen — of a middle school cafeteria during the lunch hour. While most…
Is it time to dump standardized regulations?
Imagine taking a paintbrush to the broadside of an old barn: Your goal is probably to cover the expanse uniformly with one color. But the result would likely be a lot different if you didn’t…
Prescriptive vs. performance-based regulations — which are better?
There’s no reason why a sandwich shop or an ice cream parlor should be required to use same pretreatment system as a steakhouse … right? Wastewater regulations today are often prescriptive, which means that one…
5 Tools for an effective pretreatment program
It’s been said many times: “The best defense is a good offense.” While ordinances, fines and consistent enforcement are essential, they are not sufficient for effective pretreatment. After all, the goal of a pretreatment program…
Expert Viewpoint: From Treating Waste to Harnessing Resources
Dr. A. Robert “Bob” Rubin is an emeritus professor and former extension specialist in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering at North Carolina State University. He spent more than a quarter century there doing…
Understanding Kitchen Ware Washing: Detergents and Scrapping Practices
Better Practices in the Modern Era We are thankful to live in the 21st century and to not worry about dying from a restaurant dining experience. I once worked with a man whose 20 year-old brother died in…