In the food industry a large quantity of water is consumed. Apart from being used as a main component, water is also used in the initial and intermediate cleaning of the raw materials and in carrying the wastewater coming from the cleaning of the equipment and of the production area. Moreover, another important category of raw materials are auxiliary chemicals. It should be noted that a pecerntage of the used raw materials and auxiliary chemicals (eg cleaners) ends to the final recipient as waste.

Due to the large consumption of water in the food industry, its recycling constitutes the leading trend in minimising the produced waste. It is marked that the good practices are orientated in using the recycled water for transporting materials, for cleaning the production plant or for uses that does not involve using water as a main component.

The reduction of water consumption leads to the following profits:
the reduction of the feed requirements,
the limitation of the energy needs for heating and pumping,
the reduced load of the liquid waste treatment unit.