The textile dyeing industry is a major consumer of water easily using around 200 tons of water for every ton of fabric. As charges from utility providers increases and competition from cheap overseas dye houses hots up, the pressure on margins intensifies.

Aware that the current high cost of water supply was not sustainable, a Leicestershire dye house contacted Kirton for help in finding a cost-effective solution to the mounting problem.

Fortuitously, the factory was located on the banks of the Union Canal in Leicester offering a ready-made source of water, albeit in need of extensive treatment before utilisation in the dyeing process.

Kirton installed a 25m3/hr canal water abstraction plant and a borewell pumping station to bring water direct from the canal to the factory. The process involved four stages:

Firstly, suspended solids are removed using media filtration techniques, secondly the water is passed through activated granular carbon vessels to remove any organics, colour and smell. The water is then softened to assist with the dying processes and then it is finally chlorinated to prevent biological activity during storage.

The resulting savings on water bills provided the company with a strong financial cushion to continue operations in a tough environment and it is still trading today.