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Fonterra has announced an NZD 51 million investment to improve wastewater processing at its Te Awamutu site in the Waikato region of New Zealand. The wastewater upgrade is said to be key to Fonterra’s long-term sustainability goals, as the cooperative looks to reduce water consumption at its manufacturing sites. “Reducing water use and improving wastewater at our manufacturing sites is a key part of our long-term strategy, and over the next eight years, the co-op will invest around NZD 600 million on improvements,” said Fonterra Te Awamutu operations manager, Russell Muir. The upgrade at Te Awamutu is one of the first projects being run by the newly established Wastewater Community – a partnership made up of companies including PDP, Babbage, Beca, Vertex Engineers, Aurecon, Tetra Pak, Fulton Hogan and TEG. Over the next ten years, these partners will work together to share knowledge in order to make improvements on subsequent projects. Fonterra's general manager of water and environment, Ian Goldschmidt, said: “We know that we will need to do things differently to achieve our goals and are excited to have developed this cross-industry partnership, bringing together a well-respected group of subject matter experts”. He continued: “Throughout the project at Te Awamutu, we will be continuously looking for ways to improve – not only to implement within this project but to share our knowledge with the wider Wastewater Community team”. Stage one of the construction project has just reached completion and the dairy giant claims that environmental performance has already improved significantly.