By Edgar Miller, Riverkeeper
Yadkin Riverkeeper Edgar Miller and YRK Board President Steve Ilderton recently attended a ribbon cutting ceremony at Reynolds American’s Operation Center (ROC) in Tobaccoville for its first of a kind WaterHub recycling facility. The new modular “micro” water reclamation facility will recycle more than 60 million gallons of wastewater produced at the ROC annually, reducing its wastewater discharge my nearly 90 percent and its demand for potable water by nearly 40 percent. While the water is considered clean enough to drink, it will initially only be used in cooling towers, boilers and landscape irrigation systems at the manufacturing site. According to company officials, 60 million gallons a year of water could supply on average 550 households.
The newly constructed 5,000 square feet WaterHub facility located at Reynolds American’s Tobaccoville Operations Center.
Reynolds American executive vice president for operations Bernd Meyer (right) and H20 Innovation COO Guillaume Clairet sample some of the recycled water that exceeds state drinking water standards.
H20 Innovation COO Clairet and Reynolds executive VP Meyer cut the ribbon.
Flow chart of the WaterHub process.
A facility operator explains the process with moisture loving tropical plants in the background.
The dirty wastewater, which H2O Innovation calls a “resource to be mined.”
The finished product.
New pollinator garden at the WaterHub planted by Reynolds American employees as part of this year’s Earth Day celebration. The garden will be irrigated by water from the facility.
YRK applauds Reynolds American and its parent company British American Tobacco for their investment in the future of water conservation, which will reduce the company’s global water demand by six percent. Investment in these types of facilities and technological innovations will be critical to the long term sustainability of our water resources.