Local business, Pride Drycleaning and Laundry, had its water saving efforts recognised with a Ministerial visit this month.
Small Business Minister, Damien Tudehope, visited Newcastle on January 13 to meet with small businesses to discuss their water-saving measures ahead of Level 2 water restrictions being introduced into the Hunter on January 20.
Pride’s Owner, Jennie Lyons, gave the Minister, as well as representatives from Hunter Water and Hunter Business Chamber, a tour of her Islington based facility.
Water usage at the facility has halved, saving around 45 backyard swimming pools worth of water each year.
Jennie said the savings were due to new water tanks and water saving dry cleaning machines, washers and dryers. Water used to cool its dry-cleaning machines is now used in washing machines, toilets and sinks.
Buoyed by her success, Jennie is targeting further recycling measures she estimates could cut water use by up to another 30 per cent.
“By taking our rinse water and storing this in a separate water tank, to avoid cross contamination of the clean water from the dry-cleaning machines, we can reuse it in the first wash for our laundry machines,” Jennie said.
She said she was motivated to save water because of her vision for Pride to be an eco-friendly dry-cleaning business.
She said water saving was only one of several green measures her business has put in place over the past few years.
“As a community, businesses and households, all need to play a part of reducing our environmental footprint.”
“As the drought continues we all need to save water to prevent the need for further restrictions.”
Pride’s other green initiatives include being the first business to formally partner with the Hunter-based Plastic Police® program that diverts soft plastics from landfill into recycled products.
Its Islington store actively encourages customers to return all plastics used for their clothing and will take their customers scrunchable plastics as well.
The business was part of the Office of Environment and Heritage’s Energy Hunter Program which saw it cut energy use by 20 per cent partly by reusing the heat from its dryers.
New machinery and practices combined with new staff procedures cut chemical use by 70 per cent and means staff have virtually no contact with dry cleaning chemicals.
“I have had to invest significant resources into making the changes but I will recoup money from reduced water, energy and chemical costs,” she said.
“Our customers also like to come to us for both our quality service and the fact that we are doing our bit to protect the environment.”
Under Level 2 water restrictions, all businesses will be encouraged to prepare Water Management Efficiency Plans (WEMPs) although only the approximately 150 businesses classified as being large water users (using 10-50 megalitres per year) are expected to implement them at this stage.
Hunter Water has templates on its website for small businesses to help them to prepare a WEMP.
IMAGE | Pride Drycleaning Owner, Jennie Lyons and NSW Small Business Minister, Damien Tudehope