CASE STUDY
Tackling high water costs
How to tackle high water costs and kick-start wash process innovations?
Read the story of Princes Laundry Services in Australia.
Princes’ Story
Founded almost 117 years ago in greater Melbourne, Australia, Princes Laundry Services is now one of the leading laundry groups in Australia, washing almost 1000 tonnes of textiles per week.
Princes serves the hospitality and the health care markets in a country where the supply of fresh water is under real pressure, with regular droughts, river flows dropping and population rising, as a 2020 headline announced “Australia’s water is vanishing”. Water costs continue to rise steeply and there are regular restrictions on water use for consumers and businesses during periods of drought. Princes is committed to delivering to their customers in innovative and cost-effective ways. So what could be done about water costs?
Already in 2004, the then Princes Managing Director Jeff Peterson realised that recycling water made sense to help reduce water costs. After a presentation by Ecolab, a Wientjens partner in Australia, Princes invested in its first Wientjens Aquamiser for the Braeside plant, with a recycling capacity of 12m³/hour and water savings of around 2.5 million litres/month at Braeside. Other Princes plants followed quickly, with a reduction in water consumption of around 40% at each of these laundries.
The challenge to scale up
Fast forward to 2017, and Princes Laundry Services has grown its business, with work for 3 tunnel washers and 3 washer extractors at Braeside, more than the AquaMiser could comfortably handle. The question arose: What was the best way to recycle a greater volume of process water from different washers and with peaks in demand?
At the Princes Altona plant, CEO Warwich Brown had already approved installation of Prince’s first Wientjens Blue Ocean Filter in collaboration with Ecolab. Braeside was able to hear first hand about the water savings of over 60% at Altona, thanks to this state-of-the-art water & energy recycling purchase.
The Solution
Braeside quickly choose to expand its recycling capacity by installing a Blue Ocean Filter with a recycling capability of 15 m³/hour, suitable for multiple washers, exactly suitable for the situation at Braeside. Integral to the Blue Ocean Filter are two insulated buffer tanks, one for (process) wash water and one for clean filtrate, allowing for easy management of process water demand peaks.
The Blue Ocean Filter allows 95% of process water to be filtered and re-used in the wash process, with the buffer tanks giving built-in flexibility. On Ecolab’s advice, Braeside also chose to install a Wientjens AquaDrain, which filters backflush water from the Blue Ocean Filter, that last 5% of the process water. This allows the filtered out dirt to be disposed of separately, COD in discharge water is lowered and the risk of clogging of pipes is reduced.
Results
After installation, which was completed in 4 days, Braeside has seen continued savings in water costs of some 50%. With Australian water prices threatening to double over the next decade, Princes is in a good position water-wise.
The Blue Ocean Filter has also contributed to substantial savings in energy costs and consumption thanks to the Blue Ocean filter’s high quality insulation, which allows recycling of the heat (energy) in the water as well as the water itself.
The circular thinking behind Wientjens equipment has inspired Princes Braeside plant to reuse water that is used to cool autoclave sterilisers. Instead of flowing down the drain, this hot water is now stored in a buffer tank to be reused in the washer extractors. This new insight was gained through the step to recycle process water in the first place.
The closed loop design of all Wientjens water & energy recycling equipment has ensured the Braeside laundry can adhere to the high standards required by its health care customers, peace of mind for everyone.
Princes has installed Wientjens water and energy recycling systems in 6 of their plants across Australia.
Wientjens The Dutch Water Company is proud to help Princes Laundry Services in their journey to use water sustainably as well as keeping costs reasonable for their customers.
”We can’t believe the simplicity and efficiency of the Blue Ocean. This little system doesn’t miss a beat and it has enough output to deliver 15 m³ of recovered water per hour which is enough to serve our 3 tunnels and 3 washer extractors.”
Warwick Brown
CEO, Princes Laundry Services