Water
Reducing water usage
Water is one of the vital ingredients of life. At Mars, water preservation and conservation is a top priority.
Mars reduced its annual water consumption at its chocolate factory in Slough by almost 25% from 2007 to 2009. This massive reduction was achieved following a £60 million investment. It entailed the decommissioning of one factory and installation of three new production lines in the company’s remaining factory. Given greater reliability, downtime is considerably reduced and with it associated water use necessary to restart the lines.
The Slough factory placed in-depth focus on monitoring and measuring water consumption throughout the site, enabling the identification of increases in consumption and therefore maximising efficiency on site.
In addition, two water towers at the site were removed as a new state-of-the-art cooling system was integrated into the site. This resulted in significant reduction in water loss through evaporation.
Meanwhile, the Melton petcare factory has set in place improved measurement processees by installing water meters. This will help with a comprehensive analysis of water use at this site, enabling the development of a strategy to drive down water usage.