CHICAGO — For Ed Kwasnick, director of business development at ARCO/Murray, Laundry Division, the term “green” has become a buzzword commonly thrown around in the industry. “Eco-friendly,” “environmentally conscious” and “nature-friendly” are just a few among the many terms that may come to mind when considering the concept, but Kwasnick equates green with another term—carbon footprint.
“Carbon footprint means dollars. When you put it in terms of that, dollars is a language that everyone in our industry understands,” he says. “When that carbon footprint is large, I’m spending more money than I need to.”
Kwasnick delved more deeply into the topic of green efforts in a recent Association for Linen Management webinar titled The Green Conspiracy: Saving the Environment and the Bottom Line.
SUSTAINABILITY AND THE THREE-LEGGED CHAIR
Though there are various definitions of what it means to be green—from focusing on preservation and conservation of resources, to taking actions that minimize our impact on the environment—Kwasnick explains the “major component” lies in the aspect of sustainability.
“Sustainability is all about being able to continuously do something,” he says, listing efforts to save water and money, among other resources. “It’s about being able to sustain that, not for the next six weeks, the next six months, or the next six years, but can [it] be sustainable for the next six generations?”
He stresses the need to apply sustainability to impact the triple bottom line, which involves society, the environment and economics.
“When we talk about sustaining our triple bottom line, we have to be able to sustain human resources [and] sustain our environment, but also be able to sustain the economics of the situation in order for that business and that technology to move forward.”
A simple way to understand sustainability, according to Kwasnick, is to consider the three P’s: people, planet and profit. “Is your effort, is the technology that you’re about to invest in … able to sustain your people, [the] planet and profit simultaneously? It’s a three-legged chair, so if any one of those get knocked out, then [the effort] is not going to be sustained for the long haul.”
STRATEGIES TO SAVE ON NATURAL GAS USAGE
There are many overhead expenses laundry managers must balance, and chief among them is utilities, according to Kwasnick. Under this umbrella are costs pertaining to natural gas, which he explains is the “No. 1 highest utility [laundry managers] pay on a regular basis.”
To curb these high costs related to gas, Kwasnick recommends the use of heat conservation technology, which he explains utilizes “waste heat that’s being emitted” from a laundry’s processes to “pre-heat the incoming water source.”
One green technology Kwasnick advises laundry managers to invest in for curbing high gas costs is a wastewater heat reclaimer, which he calls the “No. 1 defense against natural gas usage.”
“You’re using the outgoing effluent stream that is warm to pre-heat the water coming in, thus reducing the overall temperature of the outgoing wastewater, and increasing the temperature of the incoming water,” Kwasnick explains. “Therefore, you don’t have to use more Btu or more natural gas to heat that [incoming] water.”
Kwasnick says the technology is able to raise incoming water temperature by 40-50 F. The typical cost for wastewater heat reclaimers, he adds, ranges from $120,000 to $140,000, and can create a savings of $60,000-$80,000 a year. Another gas-savings technology Kwasnick advises managers to look into is a stack economizer, which utilizes the exhaust from a boiler system as a heat source.
“We’re actually using the heat of the flue gas to heat the incoming water and to bring that up to temperate water temperatures, or even higher,” he says, adding that the technology is able to increase incoming water temperatures by 20-25 F, and can create a savings of $30,000-$40,000 a year.
While Kwasnick highlights other systems that can help operators cut natural gas costs—like flash steam recovery and high-efficiency modular boilers—he also stresses the importance of maintenance and upkeep.
“Even if you’re not going to upgrade your boiler technology … an annual tune-up is worth every penny,” he says. “I hope most of you, if not all of you, are doing some type of annual, or even twice-a-year, boiler tune-up … ensuring that boiler is working at optimal conditions, because that will have a significant impact on your natural gas use.”
Other boiler maintenance tasks to stay on top of are insulating steam lines and fixing steam leaks.
“If that steam leak is left unrepaired for a year, it can cost you anywhere from $2,000 to $8,000 in gas costs,” says Kwasnick. “When you look up and you see that … little plume of steam coming out of a line … just think of that plume as being $2,000-$8,000 in cash just spewing out of your steam line.”
Check back Tuesday for the conclusion!
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