Pipes scraping: functionality and environmental interest

Conciliate the reduction of the environmental impact of wine industry and its business’ competitiveness; such is the objective of 12 European stakeholders involved in the Winenvironment project , coordinated by the French Institute of Vine and Wine (IFV). The project aims to demonstrate the interest of new practices and technologies, significantly acting for reducing resources consumption (water, energy) and pollutions, while providing better performances. Thus, transfer operations were the subject of an experiment. Indeed, particularly common in the cellars, they generate important water consumption and potentially pollutant effluents, especially during emptying and cleaning operations. The PIG system (recovery system) developed by INOXPA, had been tested in 16 cellars, on flexible pipes. It allows the recovery of almost all products, without qualitative impairment risk and limits products losses. So it definitely presents an economic interest. This reduction in wine loss has another consequence: the reduction in organic pollution of the effluents. It also allows an efficient pipes cleaning and limits water consumption during rinsing operations. The process is functional but requires particular implementation conditions, especially on flexible pipes, these conditions had been specify during the study.