# How much wastewater and organic load per tonne of product does the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assume for a dairy, meat, starch or paper plant?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/ipcc-wastewater-per-tonne-and-cod-by-industry-defaults

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2006 lists example wastewater volumes and chemical oxygen demand (COD) for 16 industries. Dairy is 7 cubic metres a tonne at 2.7 kilograms of COD per cubic metre, which is 18.9 kilograms of COD per tonne. The guide says its table should be used with caution.

## The table, as the guide prints it

- Format: cubic metres of wastewater per tonne (range), then COD in kilograms per cubic metre (range). NA means not available.
- Alcohol refining 24 (16 to 32) and 11 (5 to 22). Beer and malt 6.3 (5.0 to 9.0) and 2.9 (2 to 7). Coffee NA and 9 (3 to 15). Dairy products 7 (3 to 10) and 2.7 (1.5 to 5.2).
- Fish processing NA (8 to 18) and 2.5. Meat and poultry 13 (8 to 18) and 4.1 (2 to 7). Organic chemicals 67 (0 to 400) and 3 (0.8 to 5). Petroleum refineries 0.6 (0.3 to 1.2) and 1.0 (0.4 to 1.6).
- Plastics and resins 0.6 (0.3 to 1.2) and 3.7 (0.8 to 5). Pulp and paper, combined, 162 (85 to 240) and 9 (1 to 15). Soap and detergents NA (1.0 to 5.0) and NA (0.5 to 1.2). Starch production 9 (4 to 18) and 10 (1.5 to 42).
- Sugar refining NA (4 to 18) and 3.2 (1 to 6). Vegetable oils 3.1 (1.0 to 5.0) and NA (0.5 to 1.2). Vegetables, fruits and juices 20 (7 to 35) and 5.0 (2 to 10). Wine and vinegar 23 (11 to 46) and 1.5 (0.7 to 3.0).

## How the guide uses the numbers

Equation 6.6 multiplies three terms: tonnes of product a year, times wastewater in cubic metres per tonne, times COD in kilograms per cubic metre. The result is the total organic load in kilograms of COD a year. Equation 6.4 then takes the load less any removed as sludge, multiplies by a methane factor for the treatment system, and subtracts methane recovered. The methane factor is the maximum methane capacity times a correction factor for the system. The guide says to use 0.25 kilograms of methane per kilogram of COD for that capacity if no country-specific data are available.

The guide lists pulp and paper, meat and poultry, alcohol, beer and starch, organic chemicals, and other food and drink processing (dairy, vegetable oil, fruit and vegetables, canneries, juice) as the industries with high methane potential.

## How sure are the defaults

The guide says these examples should be used with caution, because they are industry-, process- and country-specific. Table 6.10 puts the uncertainty on maximum methane capacity at plus or minus 30 percent and on industrial production at plus or minus 25 percent. For wastewater volume and COD it says each is very uncertain, so it suggests one range for the product of the two, kilograms of COD per tonne of product: minus 50 percent and plus 100 percent, that is, a factor of 2.

Lab results from your own plant replace the table. Our advice, not the guide's: sample the effluent over several weeks, because one day misses the batches.

## Where it stops

The table gives load, not methane. Methane depends on how the plant treats the water. A well-managed aerobic plant has a correction factor of 0 on the guide's table, with a range up to 0.1; an anaerobic reactor or deep lagoon has 0.8. The effluent plant methane page lists them all.

## A dairy plant making 20,000 tonnes a year, anaerobic reactor (example quantities)

- COD per tonne of product: 7 x 2.7 = 18.9 kilograms
- Organic load: 20,000 x 7 x 2.7 = 378,000 kilograms of COD a year
- Emission factor: 0.25 x 0.8 = 0.2 kilograms of methane per kilogram of COD (anaerobic reactor, no recovery, no sludge removal)
- Methane: 378,000 x 0.2 = 75,600 kilograms
- At an example global warming potential (GWP) of 28: 75,600 x 28 = 2,116,800 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent, about 2,117 tonnes
- Range on COD per tonne (minus 50 percent to plus 100 percent): load 189,000 to 756,000 kilograms of COD, methane 37,800 to 151,200 kilograms

The 20,000 tonnes, the reactor and the GWP are example values. The 0.8 correction factor is the guide's value for an anaerobic reactor with methane recovery not counted.

## What Senseible does here

Senseible reads fuel invoices and electricity bills into monthly records, so the power your effluent plant draws shows up once uploaded. COD and effluent volume come from your lab tests and flow records, which you add yourself.

- [Effluent plant methane, step by step](https://senseible.earth/answers/etp-wastewater-methane-emissions)
- [Starch and sago carbon footprint](https://senseible.earth/answers/sago-starch-carbon-footprint-per-kg)
- [Common effluent plant: which scope](https://senseible.earth/answers/cetp-effluent-emissions-which-scope)
- [Free calculators](https://senseible.earth/calculators)

Sources: [IPCC 2006 Guidelines, Volume 5 chapter 6: Wastewater Treatment and Discharge (Equations 6.4 to 6.6, Tables 6.9 and 6.10)](https://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/2006gl/pdf/5_Volume5/V5_6_Ch6_Wastewater.pdf)

Last reviewed 2026-11-05. Defaults are from the 2006 IPCC Guidelines, based on a 1997 source. Replace them with your own lab COD and effluent volume as soon as you have them, and check the GWP set your report names.