CASE STUDY
Solving quality challenges
How to solve quality issues and improve sustainability in one go?
Read how Nor Tekstil’s Florø plant in Norway made this happen.
Nor Tekstil’s Story
On Norway’s beautiful west coast is Nor Tekstil’s Florø laundry, their very first laundry plant of what is now a flourishing group of 26 industrial laundries, the largest laundry service in Norway. Nor Tekstil is passionate about the environment, with stringent requirements for their rental textiles and laying big focus on sustainability in their chemical, water and energy usage. The company looks to the highest standards when it comes to carbon and water footprint and sets itself ambitious goals ever since its early days. Many of Nor Tekstil’s laundry plants have already obtained the prestigious Nordic Swan Ecolabel.
Nor Tekstil’s customers come from all sectors in Norway, ranging from flatwork in hospitals and hotels to workwear for the oil industry in the North Sea.
Quality and Environment Challenges
One of Nor Tekstil’s customers is perhaps the most historic hotel in Norway, where quality and sustainability of hotel linen are key requirements. However, the Florø plant had a quality problem, the textiles had far too much lint and hair on the bedlinen after washing, giving rise to a high rewash percentage and even some customer complaints. It also meant that recycling of process water was impossible, resulting in an average water consumption for the plant way above the industry standard of a modern laundry today. In short, a problem with urgency and with a big environmental component.
The Solution
Advised by Wientjens Norwegian partner Jako A/S, Nor Tekstil chose to install a Wientjens AquaBatch to filter tunnel process water inline. Wientjens filter technology meant that not only sand, dirt, lint and other solid particles but also hairs were definitively removed from the main wash compartment/water, while preserving the water’s heat. Able to process up to 15m3/hour, the AquaBatch fitted perfectly into the narrow space beside the tunnel washer with even space to spare. Moreover, the AquaBatch’s automatic backflush meant that it needed minimal operator attention, another important consideration for Nor Tekstil.
In addition, Nor Tekstil decided to purchase and install a Wientjens AquaDrain to collect all the dirt filtered by the AquaBatch, so that even the final discharge water from the automatic cleaning backflush was clean of solid particles and with low COD. Using a medium grade AquaDrain filter bag, Nor Tekstil was able to reduce the waste for disposal significantly.
Installation was easy, completed in just two days by Jako, important as Nor Tekstil needed to keep washing throughout.
Results
What benefits has Nor Tekstil Florø seen from their new AquaBatch and AquaDrain?
Nor Tekstil was delighted to see improved quality from the very first hour of production! Feedback from the operators on the clean side was that the amount of lint and hair was drastically reduced, re-wash roughly halved, quality department happy!
Everything that is filtered out of the process water is the ‘caught’ in the AquaDrain bag, roughly 2kg every second day, on about 11.000 kg of textiles washed. The Floro production manager is pleased with the small amount of maintenance Emptying the AquaDrain bag takes about 2 minutes, every second day.
But there was more: the installation of the AquaBatch provided the opportunity to take a careful look at the whole wash process. This resulted in a new process setup being implemented, reducing the freshwater consumption by over 50% as it was now possible to use the recycled water from the AquaBatch in the tunnel washer. The end result is a huge improvement in quality, a huge improvement in water footprint and a reduction in waste discharge.
Nor Tekstil has Wientjens water and energy recycling equipment installed at a number of its plants, we are proud to support Nor Tekstil’s journey as a high quality and sustainable launderer.