Saving water

iBulk has developed water-saving solutions for a broad cross-section of industry segments including agriculture, minerals and pharmaceutical to name a few, but the most impressive results have been achieved in both laundry and food preparation areas.

We take a holistic view of our client's problems and try to provide solutions that in many cases, provide additional benefits than those flagged in the initial brief, explained Tony Webber, managing director, iBulk. Case-in-point is our work in the laundry industry.

Initially, we were approached to assist commercial laundries reduce sewer charges by removing solids from wastewater, remarked Mr Webber. But on further analysis our team was able to reduce water consumption through the filtering and re-use of recycled water.

iBulk's solution included the installation of vibrating Sweco screens that proved extremely efficient at removing lint from wastewater, improving the quality of this grey water to a point where it can be used in a number of additional applications. The team at iBulk truly believes that the re-use of high quality grey water will become a major contributor to water saving in Australia and around the world as it will become suitable to use in more and more situations.

Static sieves have long been the standard in this field, but they have a tendency to clog and therefore require a large amount of maintenance, including frequent washing, said Mr Webber.

Following the development and installation of the vibrating sieve, we found that the cleaning and maintenance cycles were reduced and they were actually able to re-use the higher quality grey water in the heat exchanger. In the past, drinking water would have been used in this application.

Our vibrating sieves also assist companies save water by reducing the cleaning and maintenance cycles, compared with static sieves and, of course, the quality of wastewater was also vastly improved, definitely a win-win on all fronts, he said.

The 48 separator installed in this case example has the ability to handle flow rates of 280-570 L/min making it perfect for high-volume applications.