Next time you fracture open up a Tooheys, there’ll be greater than simply the beer you’re drinking to really feel excellent around. The firm has actually simply invested $7.2 million on a task that will certainly reduce water use by 270 million litres of water a year.
Using around 900 million litres a year, the firm’s Sydney plant is among the city’s largest water customers. Its brand-new reverse osmosis equipment will certainly accumulate drainage so it can be dealt with and made use of for procedures like cleansing, cooling down and cleaning.
Justin Merrell, the sustainability supervisor at Toohey’s moms and dad firm Lion, informed Yahoo News the advancement is a fundamental part of the firm keeping a “social license to operate”.
“It’s also about building resilience in our supply chain. The impacts of climate change are forecast to increase water scarcity,” he claimed.
“In Sydney, we’re reliant on one single dam – Warragamba dam which supplies the vast majority of water to the city.
“We know that dam has been at 30 per cent, so just being prepared for those sorts of scenarios is what good climate resilience looks like. It’s not waiting until these crises arrive, it’s actually getting ahead of them… and playing our role to reduce demand under those circumstances.
What is reverse osmosis?
Reverse osmosis is a water purification process that removes contaminants by using high pressure to push them through a membrane.
Fancy water cleaning machine will save Tooheys money
The new plant is expected to last a quarter of a century and save Tooheys around $1 million a year. That’s because it will cut the company’s bills.
“That’s one of the one of the good things about water recycling — you get a double whammy. You’re saving on the water that you need to purchase, but you also get a saving because you don’t have to discharge as much water to the sewer.
Other companies taking ‘bold’ stance on environment
While the company’s fancy new water machine will use a lot of electricity, Lion believes it can balance the problem because the plant has used 100 per cent renewable energy since 2020.
As part of the company’s waste treatment plan, it also created a biogas plant. Waste beer is sent to a digester which contains bugs that chew up the liquid and they create methane which helps power the factory’s boilers.
Merrell said the company aims to hit targets, rather than reach for pie-in-the-sky sustainability targets. Personally, he’s inspired by the Nestle food brand which is venturing into regenerative agriculture, and the Patagonia clothing brand which has the tagline “Earth is now our only shareholder”
“That’s a pretty bold position to take,” Merrell claimed.
Company reveals which sustainability target won’t be met
Refreshingly Merrell claims he wants to be transparent about the company’s achievements but also what he calls its “trade-offs”.
It committed to phasing out single-use plastic by the end of 2025, but that’s been an “expensive” process as cardboard is more expensive, and it’s going to take more time. Soft plastics like those that coat its Extra Dry six-packs can’t generally be recycled, and if they’re disposed of incorrectly they can harm wildlife as Yahoo News has previously reported.
“Given that the overall beer category has been declining recently, we think due to cost of living pressures, so at this stage, we couldn’t afford to implement that commitment,” Merrell said.
“We’re yet to identify an alternative timeframe. But we are looking at some interim measures, such as increasing the recycled content of that shrink wrap and overall reduction.”
id=” company-reveals-which-sustainability-target-wont-be-met”>Most soft plastic waste in Australia is transferred to landfill. Source: Getty
” id=” < figcaption course=" caption-collapse">Why recycling cardboard was a challenge for Tooheys
As the brand transfers to cardboard, it has committed to using FSC-approved and majority recycled product. But making the transition has caused new problems that anyone who has picked up a wet Coles or Woolworths paper bag can attest to.
To get around that, the company developed a cardboard that wouldn’t fall apart when it was taken out of an esky. But recycling this stronger material initially proved a challenge.
“It’s designed to resist water which means when it goes to the paper pulping process it doesn’t break down. But with our supplier, we developed a new formulation that is pulpable and can go into new products rather than landfill,” Merrill said.
“We’re ultimately driving toward a truly and genuinely sustainable beer,” he added.
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