Water saving tips that can benefit your business
Water conservation is critical to our region’s water storage levels, but as a business you can also benefit from saving water. Changing behaviours and habits, and implementing systems could help you achieve immediate or long-term cost savings. It’s Smart Business to Love Water.
Monitor your water use
If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it It’s almost impossible to save water if you don’t know how much you’re using, where and when it’s being used and where your best opportunities for water savings exist. Monitoring water use helps you to understand your water use patterns and discover leaks and inefficiencies. Without monitoring, leaks can remain undetected because most wastewater goes directly to sewer. This means you pay unnecessary water and wastewater charges. If you have leaks in your hot water services you’ll pay unnecessary energy bills. Water use monitoring will also assist with developing a maintenance schedule and water saving program.
How to monitor your water:
● Manually - Checking and logging the water meter at the end of every day.
● Building management system (BMS) - Using the existing system in your building to track water usage.
● Automatic monitoring - A monitoring system that records water usage data every 15 minutes.
● Continuous online monitoring - Pay a fixed fee to access your water use and cost anytime, online.
You can read more on how to monitor your water with our guide.
Reuse water
Greywater is the wastewater from the shower, bath, hand basins or washing machine and doesn’t include water from the kitchen sink or from toilets (known as black water). It is considered to be safe, provided that it is used in the appropriate way.
Greywater can contain certain disease-causing microorganisms, fats, oils, detergents, salts and more. If you switch to greywater-safe detergents and cleaning products, this should minimise the impact on your wastewater.
Using greywater can be as simple as bucketing it out by hand into a garden for smaller businesses, or as complex as installing an automatic diversion, treatment and irrigation system.
There are a number of do's and don’ts to be considered when installing and using a greywater system. These vary depending on the type of system used and the level of treatment.
Make small changes for big benefit
You might be surprised how small changes can make a big difference when it comes to water conservation.
● Using a dishwasher in the office kitchen can save up to five times the water of handwashing individual items.
● Encourage the team to use the ‘half’ flush on the toilet
● Never leave a tap running without purpose
● Don’t let possible leaks, constantly running toilets or plumbing issues go unchecked
● Install an aerator to the kitchen and bathroom taps
These changes will show up at your water metre and have a positive impact on your water bill.
Smart design
If you’re designing a new commercial space, make water conservation part of your decision making. From opting out of landscaping that requires a lot of water to sustain it, to investing in water saving technologies and systems, newly designed buildings and working environments present the opportunity for water savings and efficiencies, which has a positive impact on our long-term water future and your bottom line.
You can find out more ways to reduce water wastage in your industry with our handy info packs.