What is the price of water?

Water is free, right?

A lot of companies are oblivious to the true price of water, how much they use in the product and, more importantly, how much they use in other areas that don’t go into the product. This water is often used for cleaning and washdowns, pump seals and utilities top up, but perhaps this could be reduced from the current volumes.

Water usage can be compared to the amount of product which goes out of the door, so if you make 1,000 litres of product by the end of the week, but your water meter says you have used 4,000 litres of water, then 3,000 litres has gone somewhere. But where?

Often companies find it hard to invest in water-saving projects because, in relation to other utilities, it is relatively cheap. If we can reduce the amount of water used in the manufacturing processes then we can reduce how much electricity we need to pump it, lower the costs of effluent disposal, and increase the longevity of filters. All this needs to be taken into account when calculating return on investment.

Over-processing of water should also be considered when carrying out a factory review, if the quality process says potable water, is that what you are using? Or was it easier to use product water because it was close by. Have you considered that the product water may have been through a Reverse Osmosis or filtration plant that requires pumping, new filters, and that on average, RO waste is between 15 – 20% of each litre processed... was it really the cheaper ongoing option?

Have you mapped your water profile?

Other questions you may ask yourself include:

Do you know how much water you use and where you use it in your process?

Do you know the water quality required for each part of your process?

Do you have a water consumption KPI?

Not sure where to begin... contact us for a confidential discussion.