From the magazine, HDD, Markets, Rehabilitation, Tunnelling, Wastewater

Sewer and drain cleaning using recycled water: a win-win situation

Why use quality drinking water for sewer and drain cleaning when there are highly efficient and productive alternatives? Organisations such as Brisbane Water and Newcastle City Council who recognised the enormous potential of recyclers to save water and increase productivity have achieved substantial savings.

The latest high efficiency, low maintenance recyclers offer massive benefits to their owners. Water recycling allows continuous cleaning operation and eliminates the need to stop for water. Conventional machines stop production to refill several times a day, while recyclers can simply work on until the debris section of the unit is full.

A recycler can thus achieve substantially greater productivity over conventional machines which have limited water storage and hence pumping capacity. A conventional machine runs out of water in approximately 15 minutes and ceases to be productive until water has been replenished. Under certain circumstances cleaning production with conventional machines is limited to less than 2 hours per day.

A recycler on the other hand may be working a full shift without having to stop for more water. Comparing a recycler’s production potential of 8 hours against 2 hours for a conventional machine, it can be seen that a recycled water unit works smarter, not harder. The value of the additional productivity over the lifetime of a unit can be up to twice the purchase cost of a water recycle machine.

The design and componentry of modern recyclers is aimed at achieving a high recycle rate at low cost and with minimum maintenance requirements. A recycling machine delivering 100 per cent production is infinitely more beneficial to its owners/operators than conventional machinery that manages only 20 per cent production and saves no water at all.

Instead of using conventional, dirt sensitive triplex pumps, the heart of the latest recycle machine consists of a slow stroking, high pressure transformer pump that can handle contaminated water with particles sizes up to 0.5 mm. At approximately 23 strokes per minute, this pump produces 340 litres per minute at 2,900 psi. The pressure transformer is preceded by a maintenance free, self cleaning recycle strainer which removes particles in excess of 0.5 mm Ì÷ and thus eliminates the fine particle filtration process which is costly, complex and maintenance intensive.

With millions of dollars being spent by governments and utilities alike to “÷save every drop’, the new recycling sewer and drain cleaners also make your water conservation support a very profitable venture. Let’s save our drinking water and not pour it down sewers and drains.

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