Namibia Dairies saves water

IN light of the current water crisis, Namibia Dairies has pledged its commitment to take hands with the City of Windhoek and other role players by ensuring that effective measures are in place for the business to save every possible drop of water.

“Even before a water crisis has been declared by the City of Windhoek, we have realised that we were facing tough times in terms of water availability, and that we should implement some actions to save water in order to ensure job security and sustainable production output at our plant at Avis,” said the head of technical services at the company, Pieter van Wyk.

He said Namibia Dairies made remarkable strides in curbing water usage at its plant and operations.

“We have a savings improvement of 40% (4 200 cubic meters) since the start of our initiative, and this also represents a good improvement on the required City of Windhoek quota. The main indicator on savings, however, is the ratio of a litre water used per litre product produced. This ratio has improved from 3,51 litres water to 2,61 litres water per litre product produced.”

A water crisis committee was established at the company to focus on the reduction of water usage, reclamation of usable water and the change in water consumption. Implemented measures and actions include additional flow meters, which are monitored and noted on a daily basis; various buffer tanks, pumps and pipes to accumulate and redistribute the water; re-engineering of cleaning processes and programmes; the installation of water-saving devices throughout the plant and ablution facilities; weekly committee tracking meetings implemented, and constant awareness discussions on all meeting platforms throughout the business. All three Windhoek-based Namibia Dairies operations are included in the exercise.

“We had a very negative outlook on the situation at the beginning of the water crisis in terms of product supply, job stability and future business opportunities. Fortunately we, as a Namibia Dairies team, have become accustomed to face all sorts of challenges, and we therefore decided that this will also not hamper our spirit. This was an absolute team effort, and all credit goes to the team, who really thought out of the box and made things happen as it was identified. Brilliant support and commitment was received from all supporting functions to get alignment on the execution of actions,” Van Wyk said.

He emphasised that the company did not have to waive one single litre or unit of product or production as a result of the water crisis.

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