Water stewardship

Reduce: Submetering insights at Sittingbourne

Reducing water use starts with understanding exactly where water is being consumed. At our Sittingbourne site, we have improved the way water is monitored and managed by installing water meters to track water consumption across production lines and equipment. This facilitates a deeper understanding of water use across the site. For example, when water consumption increased following an equipment upgrade, the change was quickly identified and corrective action taken to change machine operating conditions.

Reuse: Plastic pipe extrusion at Cork and Sittingbourne

Our plastic pipe extrusion process involves pushing molten polymer at over 200°C through a tool and die head and a vacuum spray tank to form the pipe, which must then be rapidly cooled to solidify the polymer in its desired shape. A cool water spray tank maintained at 20-22°C, is used to cool the plastic pipes.

The cooled water is reused within a closed-loop system in the manufacturing process. Once the water has absorbed heat from the extruded plastic, it is directed through two tanks where it is filtered and cleaned for reuse. To reduce the water temperature back to 20-22°C, the water is fed to an outdoor cooling tower during the winter or to an active cooling system during the summer, before being cycled back into the vacuum spray tanks. This system is typically purged and refilled once per year to clean the system and allow maintenance activities to be carried out.

Reuse: Water recovery at Warnham

At our Warnham brickworks, an innovative electric heat pump captures humid exhaust air from the brick drying process and recovers water by condensation, as well as heat for reuse. This recovered water is filtered and reused in clay preparation, helping to reduce water consumption at this site. The heat pump is projected to reduce annual water consumption by 3.5 million litres per year, demonstrating how decarbonisation projects can also deliver significant resource conservation benefits.

Rethink: Design for water resilience at Smeed Dean tileworks

We designed our Smeed Dean tileworks with water resilience in mind. Located in the south east of England, an area of high water stress, this factory needed a water supply that minimised demand on public infrastructure. Our solution was to use a combination of a groundwater borehole and a 10,000-litre harvesting system to collect and recycle rainwater for use in the manufacturing process. These non-mains water sources are complemented by an advanced water metering technology across the site which gives the local teams clearer visibility of water use, supporting efficiency in normal operating conditions and the ability to spot abnormal consumption swiftly.

Our Biodiversity Enhancement Management Plan (BEMP) for this site also considered water scarcity at this site. We use a swale to slow down rainfall surface water runoff, allowing it to infiltrate into the ground rather than flowing rapidly into drains and watercourses. As a nature-based drainage solution, swales can also enhance biodiversity by providing valuable habitat for plants, insects, and other wildlife, while reducing pressure on traditional drainage infrastructure during heavy rainfall events. In other areas of the site, drought-tolerant species were chosen to reduce the need for extra watering during dry periods.