The agri-food sector makes a substantial contribution to the Irish economy. In order to promote growth within this sector, the Irish government has adopted the Food Harvest 2020 and, subsequently, the Food Wise 2025 strategies. Along with the abolition of dairy quotas in 2015, these strategies offer scope for significant growth, particularly within the dairy sector, and the aim of Food Harvest 2020 is to increase milk production by 50% overall. An increase in primary production will inevitably lead to an increase in the generation of processing waste.This project focused on (1) the identification/quantification of dairy processing wastewater process streams of environmental significance that are likely to be characteristic of the year 2020; (2) the evaluation of current and emerging technologies in order to determine which are best suited to the treatment of the most significant pollutants identified; (3) the evaluation of the potential of whey (a potentially major pollutant produced as a by-product of cheese manufacture) as a growth medium for industrially important microorganisms; and (4) the minimisation of water usage in dairy plants.