Nestlé transforms milk residue in water on dry spell

In the face of protests in California, for bottling water in times of drought there, Nestle SA will spend millions to convert residual water of milk in a liquid which the company can use to clean their factories – and polishing its corporate image.
The largest u.s. water bottling company will install new filtration systems in a factory in Modesto, 144 miles east of San Francisco, in order to be able to reuse the waste from the manufacture of condensed milk Carnation instead of throwing them down the drain.
The Treaty will be used instead of fresh water to clean and cool, according to Jose Lopez, Chief Operating Officer of Nestlé.
"We're not going to disclose this to improve our ecological image," Lopez said in an interview in his Office in Vevey, Switzerland. "Economically, it doesn't make sense to do this, of course. The drought this year is teaching us that we have to think of ways to adapt. What today seems not entirely advisable in an economic perspective will become necessary. "
The measure strengthens Nestle against the criticism at a time when California supports the fourth consecutive year of drought.
In March, a group of up to 24 protesters with plastic pitchforks blocked the entrance to the water bottling plant of Nestle in Sacramento during midday and the company stopped sending trucks in and out of the site.
More than 82,000 people have signed a petition demanding to Nestlé to stop bottling water from a spring in Southern California.
The reform of $ 7 million in milk factory Carnation will reduce the use of water in 71 percent when the first phase is completed next year, Lopez said.
Protests
The factory will save about 238.48 million liters per year, equivalent to 9 percent of the water used by Nestlé in the State to produce the brands of bottled water Arrowhead and Pure Life.
The improvement is part of the company's plan to reduce the water that Switzerland uses worldwide in 40 percent in the ten years until 2015. The operations of Nestle's bottled water have been especially targeted by protesters.
"It's the worst drought that we've seen in a long time, and it is irresponsible of the State allow Nestlé bottle water that should be a public resource," said Adaw Scow, Director of Food Water Watch, an NGO, in California.
"We will ask for a suspension of water bottling for-profit private".
Starbucks Corp. said on May 7 that would use water from California to your brand Ethos and would transfer production to Pennsylvania, but Nestle rejects the possibility that should stop bottling water in California because of the drought.
The Switzerland company uses 4 million cubic meters of water per year in the State, less than 0.008 percent of total use in California.
Agriculture
Lopez said that agriculture has a greater possibility of saving water than Nestlé.
A kilo of beef requires thousands of gallons of water, and an improvement in irrigation practices means greater potential savings, according to the Executive.
Nestlé also will begin a project to reduce the use of water in ice cream factories in Bakersfield and Tulare at 12 percent using bacteria to digest the waste water in order to make it suitable for use in refrigeration.
The company also plans to build wastewater treatment projects in South Africa and in Pakistan.
Meanwhile, Nestle is urging Governments to improve the aqueducts and reduce incentives to waste water.
It is likely that the major users of water pump more if you wait the implementation of mandatory reductions, which is a contradiction, said Lopez.
"In California, there is no infrastructure," said Lopez. "You're not going to look at me and take responsibility for where there is no infrastructure to deal with the situation today, isn't it? It's easy to demonize something. "