The Trouble with Triple Rinsing

In Tim’s previous post, "What is Water Worth to Your Business?", the importance of water management was discussed along with the potential water savings by using EnduroSolv® water treatment products.

Let’s run the numbers and see how much water can actually be saved.

Proper procedure for triple rinsing a 55-gallon drum is as follows:

• Empty drum to the lowest possible level.
• Fill drum with water to 25% of capacity. Replace and tighten bungs.
• Tip drum on to its side and roll it back and forth, ensuring at least one complete revolution, for 30 seconds.
• Stand the drum on its end and tip it back and forth several times to rinse the corners.
• Turn the drum over on to its other end and repeat this procedure.
• Carefully empty the rinsate into the spray can.
• REPEAT THIS PROCEDURE TWO MORE TIMES.
• Carefully rinse cap over spray tank opening and then dispose of appropriately as regular solid waste.
• Puncture the base of the drum with a drill so that it cannot be reused.
• Store drums under cover where they will be protected from rain.

Sounds easy, right?? So how much water is actually used to complete this procedure correctly? The procedure requires that each drum is filled to 25% of its capacity three different times and rinsed, so…
55 (gallons)
x 25% (of the drum’s capacity)
x 3 (number of times to do procedure)
= 41.25 gallons of water per drum

Now, what does that add up to? A facility that uses five different boiler and/or cooling tower products (one drum for each product) at a rate of one drum of product every other month, uses approximately 60 drums per year. An astonishing 2,475 gallons of water would be needed just to triple rinse those drums… and that’s just for one facility!

A company can eliminate this expense and waste all together by switching to EnduroSolv® water treatment products. Because EnduroSolv® is a solid concentrate, the need for 55-gallon drums and all of their disposal issues is eliminated.

Posted on behalf of Kathleen Collier