EVENTS AND EXHIBITIONS
INCORPORATING COLD CHAIN
are not just looking at carbon footprints anymore but water, too. For instance, when consuming meat, one must actually consider how much water in total was used to produce that product.
A panel discussion took place where various presenters discussed their own experiences.
LEADING BY EXAMPLE
JG Afrika, Growth Point properties, The Vineyard Hotel, South African Breweries( SAB), and Netcare showcased their water journey successes.
The City of Cape Town put in a lot of effort to promote water saving, including this colourful visual display.( Now it seems 87 litres was still conservative.)
John Stenslunde of SAB presented on the various water initiatives in place at the SAB Newlands Brewery. Fortunately, the Newlands Brewery draws all its water usage from a natural spring and has no usage taken from the City’ s supply of potable water. Elsewhere in the country, SAB has managed to realise a 21 % reduction in water usage. This was done by swift action in repairing any leaks and monitoring of usage with daily reporting.
Roy Davies, general manager of The Vineyard Hotel, also recounted their water-saving initiatives. He was upbeat and said initially, they were hesitant as to what could be done about water usage. They started by fitting meters in different parts of the hotel to monitor where the water was being used. For instance, they identified that in the kitchen, the water usage was extremely high. They then went further and identified that the water was actually from a dishwasher and this machine was bypassing water at a fantastic rate. They immediately got that repaired and saved thousands of litres per month.
“ Our guests have become very supportive of all our water-saving initiatives. One lady guest even handed in her bath plug as she thought it had been left there by mistake. Through various staff and guest awareness programmes, The Vineyard managed to save 24.5 % on water from April to September 2017 when compared to the same period the year before,” Davies said.
Following on the panel discussion, the signed pledge by the Cape Town members of the Federated Hospitality Association of Southern Africa( FEDHASA) to reduce water consumption and in all their facilities, presented by Jeff Rosenberg, Cape chairperson, received a rousing applause by all the delegates.“ FEDHASA Cape supports the Western Cape province and the City of Cape
A panel of key players from JG Afrika, Growth Point properties, The Vineyard Hotel, South African Breweries( SAB), and Netcare showcased their water journey successes.
Town’ s water-saving initiatives and we challenge all associations and businesses to take urgent action to save water.”
SAVING WATER IN REFRIGERATION
In refrigeration, the use of evaporative condensers is of major concern. Kevin Schlemmer of CoolCheck drew the attention of delegates to how water usage of evaporative condensers is influenced by the efficiency of the plant. The water usage on many systems would be reduced significantly if the plants were operating more efficiently.
“ HVAC & R systems with cooling towers can consume as much as 50 % of the potable water in commercial buildings. For industrial food production and agroprocessing, this usage can increase to 80 %,” explained Schlemmer.
WATER SAFETY
There was a great deal of emphasis on the fact that one has to be cautious in terms of using grey water. There are by-laws that govern water that comes into contact with the body, such as drinking water and even the water in swimming pools. Treatment is crucial to ensure safety.
DAY ZERO
It is now a couple of months later and we are inching closer to Day Zero …
Have all the promises and talk of 19 October materialised? According to some politicians, it is inevitable that Cape Town becomes the first metropole city in the world to have the taps run dry in May 2018.
Officially, at the time of going to print, the date has moved out to mid-May thanks to a drop off in agricultural use of water. Currently, the agriculture sector is drawing about 30 % of the water in the supply scheme. According to the City, this should fall to about 15 % in March and 10 % in April.
As of 1 February 2018, level 6B water restrictions and tariffs have come into effect to help finance water services and to reduce usage.
To cover the costs of water and sanitation provision, and to assist in driving down demand further, the water and sanitation tariffs have been increased. The tariffs remain based on usage. The more you use, the more you pay. High users will be hit especially hard. The City claims not to make a profit on the sale of water.
New rates and level 6B restrictions are part of the City’ s efforts to avoid Day Zero and to create financial stability for the provision of water services. Although usage is down from 1.1 billion litres a day to just under 600 million litres a day, it needs to get to 450 million litres of collective usage a day to avoid Day Zero. CLA
26 www. coldlinkafrica. co. za COLD LINK AFRICA • March | April 2018