Much of England and all of Wales are in drought.
Prolonged dry weather and sustained high temperatures have led water companies to impose hosepipe bans affecting more than 23 million people – and more are still expected to follow.
River levels have continued to fall. Reservoir levels have dropped below normal.
There has been very little rainfall over the past seven weeks. A persistent weather pattern is creating a domino effect – increasing the likelihood and spread of wildfires, putting pressure on food production, damaging natural habitats and killing wildlife.
So how can it be that, during a water shortage of this scale, companies are still permitted to flush millions of litres of water to drain from HVAC systems?
Particularly when there are alternatives.
And, in our view, flushing to drain isn’t just wasteful and environmentally irresponsible – it’s an inferior method of cleaning heating and cooling systems.
This little rig, pictured, has only ever filled systems. That water then remains in the system and nothing is flushed to drain.
This little rig has treated more than 1,106 m³ of water.
This little rig is so effective that it has avoided 30-50 times that volume being needlessly flushed to drain – roughly 33-55,000,000 litres of water. At even the lower end of the saving that’s:
– Enough to fill around 13 Olympic-sized swimming pools
– Enough to provide approximately 80mm of irrigation across 1,000 acres of dry farmland
– Enough domestic water for around 650 people for a year
And that’s just one rig.
We have many more: 45 in total in fact, of varied sizes.
So, during a drought crisis, we have to ask: Is flushing millions of litres of water to drain really acceptable when it can be avoided?
Not in our view.