Zero Waste Discharge (ZWD) for Dairy and Cheese Effluent: Single-Stage Vacuum Recovery of Water, Lactose, Fat and Casein via Arbok-Milk

The global dairy and cheese industry discharges one of the most oxygen-demanding effluent streams on Earth. Cheese-making alone generates over 100 million tonnes of whey per year (estimates ~115-180 Mt), of which roughly 47% is released directly to sewers and watercourses. Raw whey carries COD of 50,000-100,000 mg/L and BOD of 30,000-60,000 mg/L, exceeding EU surface-water limits (25/125 mg/L) by 500-1,000 times. This paper presents Zero Waste Discharge (ZWD) and its dairy implementation, Arbok-Milk: single-stage deep-vacuum thermodynamic separation at near-ambient temperature (~1 kPa), with no chemicals, membranes or consumables, at ~0.72 kWh/m3, achieving 100% water recovery and no liquid tail. From 980 t/day of effluent the process recovers ~911 t clean water, 48 t lactose, 8.5 t protein (casein and whey proteins) and 12.5 t fats and minerals. The paper quantifies the four-vector cost that ZWD removes - strength-based discharge charges (the Mogden term falls ~99% with a thousandfold load reduction), regulatory penalties, settling-lagoon CAPEX/OPEX, and lost resource value - and frames recovered casein within a ~US$3 billion/year global market and its downstream materials chain (Cyprasein bioplastic, milk-protein textile fibre).