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Green $en$e Guide
An in-depth look at how local businesses can get on the right
Green $en$e track.
$ $ $
Why WiseWater
Use is Important
Water
Efficiency/Reuse
In normal years,
Hampton Roads, averages 45 inches of rain a year and is surrounded by
shoreline, so why the concern about water efficiency? Consider the
following:
·
Limited fresh water resources.
Despite being surrounded by water, the Tidewater area has a shortage
of water - fresh water that is treated for use as drinking water. The
Chesapeake Bay and most of our surrounding rivers salty, including the
Elizabeth, James, Northwest and York Rivers. Most water utilities
must pump fresh water from miles away, and store it in reservoirs
prior to treatment. And only a limited amount of groundwater is
suitable to drink without some form of treatment, since it also tends
to be salty.
·
Vulnerable to drought.
The spring and summer of 2002 brought a serious drought to much of
Virginia, and a good part of the nation also experienced serious
drought. The Governor placed most of the state under mandatory water
use restrictions, and most Tidewater water utilities were struggling
to meet water demand with rapidly diminishing resources. Lack of rain
means that our watersheds can't collect rain run-off to the
reservoirs. It also means we can't pump water from fresh water rivers
when stream flows are below a certain level. Finally, it means that
our customers tend to irrigate more when we have less water
available.
·
Increase costs.
When water supplies are limited costs increase to customers. In 2002
this became apparent when many utilities were forced to increase rates
and impose fines to stretch water supplies. Such situations can prove
costly to customers with large water demands.
·
Hampton Roads continues to attract more people and industry, but water
supply is not keeping up.
Some new supplies,
such as Lake Gaston, have been added on the southside, but the
Peninsula continues to work for a permit to build a needed reservoir.
The combination of
limited fresh water sources, vulnerability to drought, stalled water
supply projects, growing population, and continued industrial
developments mandates that we use our water wisely.
Common uses
of water in the industrial/commercial/institutional sectors
A publication called the “Handbook of
Water Use and Conservation, written by Amy Vickers and published in
2001, provides extensive research into water use in the U.S. Ms.
Vickers offers the following:
Industrial
customers include small or large-scale product manufacturing and
processing activities. Their use tends to be divided among four
primary functions: heating/cooling, industrial processing, washing,
and as an ingredient.
Commercial
customers (retail, office buildings, hotels/motels, restaurants, food
stores, amusements parks, other areas of commerce and also
multi-family residences) use water primarily for domestic purposes
(sanitary plumbing fixtures), cooling and heating, and landscape
irrigation.
Institutional
customers (government and public
facilities, including schools and universities, hospitals and health
care facilities, military installations, sports arenas and churches)
primarily use water for heating and cooling, domestic purposes and
landscape irrigation.
A study completed in 2002 by the
American Water Works Association Research Foundation (AWWARF) analyzed
a sampling of ICI customer water use in the west that indicated that
potential water savings from conservation measures range from 15 –
50%, with 15 – 35% being typical. The study also pointed out that
reuse of treated wastewater in place of potable (drinking) water could
be used in many ICI applications.
Commercial, municipal and institutional establishments usually have
more to gain by implementing or expanding waste reduction and
recycling programs than individual residences because of their
typically high waste generation rates. The following helps to explain
why this is so.
Avoided Cost
Many businesses could reduce the amount of material that must be
disposed as waste by implementing aggressive recycling and waste
reduction programs. For example, more than 90% of the waste generated
by an office may be paper. If much of this material could be diverted
from the waste stream by recycling or reuse, disposal costs could be
reduced as well. Avoided cost savings are more dramatic for larger
businesses, but can benefit any business. In fact, cost avoidance is
often the biggest benefit of a waste reduction and recycling program.
Energy Savings and Conservation of Natural Resources
The aluminum industry estimates that 95% less energy is used to
produce new cans from old cans. Why is this? Making aluminum cans from
virgin materials requires that bauxite ore be extracted from the earth
and processed. This is much more energy intensive process than
collecting used beverage cans UBCs) and reprocessing them to make new
cans. Using UBCs also conserves bauxite, a non-renewable natural
resource, thus preserving the mineral for future uses and future generations. Finally, using UBCs reduces waste, by reducing
the waste byproducts generated during the extracting and processing of
bauxite to manufacture aluminum.
Recycling has similar effects within other industries as well. It has
been estimated that recycling one ton of paper saves 17 trees.
Although trees are a renewable resource, much energy is expended to
convert them into paper. Reducing energy alone is important, because
it reduces the demand for limited fossil fuels, thus reducing demand
for foreign energy sources. In every case, reusing materials will help
to preserve often dwindling supplies of important natural resources
and/or make these resources available for other purposes.
Pollution Reduction
Environmental degradation caused by logging, mineral extraction
and extra emissions into the air, land and water usually accompanies
the transformation of the raw materials into useful products. The
additional energy, pollution control, and waste handling costs must be
covered in some way. These
costs are typically incorporated into the cost of a product, but
society as a whole pays for the costs of damage to the environment
from pollution and mismanagement of resources through increased taxes,
increased health problems, and reduced quality of life. Recycling
reduces some pollution simply because the recyclable material has
already gone through a manufacturing process.
For more details on commercial recycling and waste prevention, please
visit these sites:
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