Rubber Industry Waste Water Treatment

Rubber industry in Lampung province, Indonesia. produce crumb rubber and rubber smoke sheet from latex as raw material. This process consumed a lot of water and of course will produce a lot of waste water (25-30 m3 per ton latex). The waste water contain high concentration of organic matters which indicated by high concentration of BOD and COD. The characteristics of rubber waste water are shown in Table 7. Considering to the characteristics and the amount of rubber waste water, waste water treatment process in rubber industry also use conventional biological treatment and followed by reuse of treated waste water as process water in the factory. As a case study we observed the waste water treatment plant in PT. Perkebunan Nusantara VII Unit Rubber Factory Kedaton, Lampung Indonesia. The wastewater treatment plant of PT. Perkebunan Nusantara VII Unit Rubber Factory Kedaton, Lampung Indonesia has total area about 6 Ha with 9 ponds and total volume capacity approximately 55,806 m3. The hydraulic retention time of rubber wastewater was designed about 66 days to reduce the concentration of waste water until reach national standard and reuse again the treated waste water as process water. Stage of process in waste water treatment plant of PT. Perkebunan Nusantara VII Unit Rubber Factory Kedaton was designed as follow: Rubber trap, anaerobic pond, facultative pond, aerobic pond, and recycle pond.