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In order to preserve the environment, water consumption in dairies must be minimized and wastewater should be treated before discharging it into water recipients. The purpose of this paper is to provide a definition for water consumption centres and to derive a general equation for determining the specific water consumption at the monthly level specific water consumption (SWC), as well as to present the current state of water treatment of dairy wastewater on the territory of central Serbia. The results of the study on the tested sample of 40 dairies show that the average specific water consumption (SWC_A) at the monthly level–amounts to 3.47 m³ /m³ of the treated milk. Despite the fact that there are laws that regulate emissions of pollutants, the observed emissions from the sample dairies (regardless of whether they have wastewater treatment plants installed or not) are very often up to several times higher than the permitted limit values. The paper also assesses the efficiency of equipment for wastewater treatment used in one of the tested dairies. © 2018 Desalination Publications. All rights reserved.