By Isabel Schestak
Every human activity and every manufactured product carries an environmental footprint – that is no different for appliances or installations required to make water use more efficient. In this project, we look for example on the environmental footprint of a heat recovery system to recover heat from drain water.
A smart choice of materials and design can lower this footprint substantially and reduce emissions and resource use. By applying the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology, we determine the best way to design sustainable heat recovery systems. This is called eco-design.
We are aiming to make the eco-design guidelines for heat recovery systems available to all businesses who are interested in using this technology. This will be facilitated by a toolkit. Free to use and publically available, the toolkit will provide two things: firstly, advice for decision making such as: Is my facility a potential candidate for recovering heat from drain water? And secondly, giving advice from a design perspective: Which technology can be used and which materials are recommended?
The recommendations for business owners will be based on individual information that the users fill in themselves, such as data on the water use amount and pattern. Examples for businesses are restaurant and pub owners, breweries, distilleries and many more operating in and outside the food sector.
With the tool, business owners will have the chance to not only reduce the environmental impact of their activities but also save energy and costs for heating water.