‘CONSERVE’: Water Recycling’s ‘Next Frontier’

Nearly 40 online attendees – each of whom received a $10 drink voucher from Starbucks – learned on June 18 about a program aimed at helping laundry operators improve efficiency, quality and environmental performance – all with no up-front capital costs. Add to that, they get help with attaining third-party certification to TRSA’s Clean Green and/or Hygienically Clean certifications, and you have an enticing package of benefits for companies working to recover from COVID-19-driven shutdowns.

The TRSA webinar presentation centered on a program, dubbed “CONSERVE.” This initiative represents a partnership between wastewater equipment provider Kemco Systems, Six Disciplines Consulting Services and TRSA. CONSERVE involves the installation of water-recycling equipment, including a high-tech reverse-osmosis system capable of filtering out virtually all microorganisms, plus dyes, minerals and PFAS (perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances) and microplastics, said Tom Vanden Heuvel, president/CEO of Kemco.

TRSA President and CEO Joseph Ricci hailed the cooperative effort with Kemco and Six Disciplines, which would provide support to companies pursuing Hygienically Clean and Clean Green certifications from TRSA, as a pioneering initiative to help laundry operators. “Several weeks ago, Tom (Vanden Heuvel), approached TRSA with this opportunity to encourage laundries to pursue Hygienically Clean and Clean Green certifications, including assistance from Six Disciplines with no up-front investment,” Ricci said. “CONSERVE supports financial liquidity to members, which is critical in the post-COVID environment, when our many members are cash-strapped.” He said he hopes other vendors will step forward with similar proposals.

In a Q&A session after his presentation, Vanden Heuvel said Kemco’s service fee in the Water-Recycling-As-A-Service model is designed to be lower than the plant’s current water and sewer costs, netting positive cash flow to the operator from day one.  The program covers all capital costs and regular maintenance of the equipment that’s designed to deliver dramatic improvements in water quality, including up to 90% reuse. Kemco is offering operators an affordable option to pursue continuous improvement and sustainability. “What we’re looking at is the next frontier in terms of recovering and recycling water in the plant,” Vanden Heuvel said, adding that rising water costs threaten many companies’ profitability. “We’re doing a good job containing the costs on energy, but water and sewer costs are only going up.”

At the same time, the demands of customers, regulators and the general public are increasing, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. In his presentation, Vanden Heuvel noted that beyond the ability of shaker screens, dissolved air floatation (DAF) systems and even ceramic-filtration equipment, reverse osmosis can eliminate waste particles including viruses that allow operators to purify water so that the quality is better than that which they receive from municipal water suppliers. The filter opening for a reverse osmosis system is 1/2000th of a micron. Referring to a slide titled “Reverse Osmosis in Context,” Vanden Heuvel noted that the size of a human hair is 100 microns wide. Bacteria and cysts can be as small as 1 or 10 microns, so the filtering in reverse-osmosis equipment is much more thorough than with other technologies.

This improved performance is crucial not only to reassuring customers of cleanliness, but also regulators in states such as California that have moved to limit PFAS and microplastics as pollutants. Vanden Heuvel commended TRSA for fending off draconian proposals by legislators in the Golden State to control PFAS. Nonetheless, a sustainable solution makes both economic and environmental sense going forward.

Adopting third-party certification programs such as Clean Green or Hygienically Clean Healthcare, Hospitality, Food Service or Food Safety, can also help companies deal with risk-averse customers and regulators. In a presentation on these programs that preceded Vanden Heuvel’s talk, Six Disciplines Senior Adviser Audrey Carmichael gave attendees an overview of both programs. As for Clean Green, she noted that it can:

• Save money by improving efficiencies and reducing water and energy costs.
• Benefit the environment and enhance sustainability by reducing utility consumption.
• Improve competitiveness and differentiate the operation with enhanced efficiency and corporate responsibility. Click here to learn more.

In an overview of the Hygienically Clean “family” of certifications, Carmichael reviewed the key milestones for plants on the road to certification. These include:

• Updating (developing) or “dusting off” procedures and recordkeeping practices required to demonstrate compliance with Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and other regulatory requirements.
• Ensuring that staff are fully trained and able to complete required processes and procedures safely.
• Collecting all of these current processes and procedures into a quality-assurance (QA) manual.
• Completing a series of tests on textile samples by independent labs approved by the Hygienically Clean program. A company’s textiles will undergo testing on three separate occasions, ideally about one month apart. The tests are for microbes, molds and yeasts, plus specified microorganisms such as e coli and salmonella.
• Passing a plant inspection: Inspectors will come to the plant, review the QA manual, observe to see if the plant is complying with its own policies, and question staff on compliance issues. They will take photographs and conduct hard-surface testing as well to ensure a hygienically clean environment.

Once the certification is approved, textile tests are conducted on a quarterly basis. Carmichael said the process is challenging but not impossible for companies to complete without help. However, it does require staff time and, in some cases, financial resources to make various improvements to plants, such as ensuring continuous separation of soil and clean areas. Companies that want outside assistance from Six Disciplines to complete the process quickly and efficiently can take advantage of the CONSERVE program. For more on CONSERVE, contact Kemco’s Matt Lewis at mlewis@kemcosystems.com.

Since the COVID-19 crisis broke in early March, TRSA has aired more than 30 webinars on the pandemic and related issues. You can access Carmichael and Vanden Heuvel’s presentations and other TRSA webinars through TRSA’s on-demand learning library, which allows you to “live stream” all of the association’s webinars. TRSA members can purchase nearly 150 webinars, and other training and educational resources at reduced member prices. Visit  www.trsa.org/ondemand to go to TRSA’s On-Demand Learning portal to view this webinar and more.