Water conservation

Sunday, November 26, 2017

Water is life.  According to the project leader of the Water Conservation and Management Focus Group at Unisa’s Geography Department, as a result of the growing population and the expansion of the economy, South Africa’s current freshwater resource status is under immense pressure.
In order to conserve and reduce water consumption, Peermont and Emperors Palace has implemented the following initiatives:

• to enable the use of grey water in the sewerage systems, dual plumbing was installed in our new Peermont Metcourt extension at Emperors Palace. Once our grey water facilities are installed, we intend to use this waster to reduce potable water usage.
• general maintenance of the various Peermont operations to assist to identify and prevent water leaks;
• we offer our clients water dispensers for meetings, upon request, to eliminate the waste of bottled water;
• water quality is tested regularly during the FCS audits;
• to reduce water waste we have rolled out the availability of water dispensers within our facilities;
• re-usable glass bottles are being introduced in order to reduce the need for plastic bottles;
• water flow inhibitors have been installed in the majority of taps and water efficient shower heads have been rolled out across the group;
• a waterless urinal waste system has been trialled at Emperors Palace and some other Peermont properties;
• a grey water plant exists at the Grand Palm and the grey water is used for garden irrigation.  Investigations have commenced to introduce a similar initiative at Emperors Palace to supplement the borehole water supply;
• boreholes have been installed at both Emperors Palace, Khoroni and Rio;
• a number of programmes exist where guests are requested to reduce laundry volumes by reusing towels for longer periods during their stay and reducing their water usage wherever possible;
• Emperors Palace has reduced the number of cooling towers on its air conditioning system from 7 to 3, greatly reducing the amount of water used in this process;
• Peermont has also installed its own meters to monitor actual water consumption in order to be able to detect water leaks more easily, so that the repairs can be actioned.

WATER SECURITY
For various reasons, including the protracted drought in Southern Africa, water security was a critical focus area for management during 2016.  In response to this crisis, the operations have responded with the installation of standby water supply solutions, through the installation of JoJo Tanks and Modular Steel Water storage solutions.