Environment

Spotless leads the way in water conservation

Spotless’ laundries business has saved over 290 million litres of water, equivalent to 116 Olympic swimming pools, by refining its filtration process.

With water being a critical component of laundry operations, water conservation is one of the biggest environmental challenges Spotless faces.

In 2017, Spotless installed Blue Ocean filtration units, providing a refined filtration process designed to harvest water from specific parts of the wash cycle and insert it into other wash stages to reduce water and energy use. Spotless has installed this unit at its five largest laundries: Abbotsford (Victoria), Dudley Park (South Australia), Rosebery (New South Wales), North Rocks (New South Wales) and Murdoch (Western Australia).

To further improve its conservation of water, Spotless has implemented water management plans, rainwater harvesting and installed new water-efficient washers.

These initiatives have reduced water use by 80 per cent in the laundries business.

Spotless is the only national operator of health care linen services Australia-wide and is an industry leader in water conservation.

This initiative demonstrates Downer's contribution to achieve the following Sustainable Development Goals: