5 Effective Tips to Reduce Water Waste at Your Company

Julie Starr • April 6, 2022



We live in a world of waste. While you might instantly think of food and energy, water is a valuable resource that costs money. Here are some ways you can reduce water waste.

Store and Harvest Rainwater

Most water comes from filtered natural sources like rivers. But it doesn’t last forever, and you are charged for using it. But there is plenty of water that comes from the sky in most places, and you can harvest rainwater with novel technology. Depending on the tech, you could use it as drinking water, but it’s probably not worth the cost. So instead, it is best collected and filtered in industrial tanks . You can then use it for the toilets, handwashing and cleaning machines. With rainwater collection, you can decrease your mains water dependence by up to 60%.

Hire Professionals for Pipe Maintenance

Just like at home, your business will experience common issues like faulty electrics and leaking pipes. And just like home, leaking pipes are the cause of increased water bills through loss of resources. However, you can decrease the amount of wasted water by having your pipes checked regularly by a professional. Proactive monitoring will find leaks whenever they occur, reducing the likelihood of costly water pipe bursts or water-wasting long-term leaks. Additionally, you will reduce the chances of associated problems like electrical faults, dampness in the walls, and mold.

Reduce Water Waste with Recycling

Like rainwater collection, you can supplement your water source with reclaimed wastewater. Called greywater recycling, wastewater from washing applications (anything without biological hazards) can be used repeatedly for the same things. As a result, the amount of fresh water from a paid-for water source decreases significantly. And this means less wasted water and fewer expenses. Specialist companies can install greywater systems into your business (or home) for an initial fee. However, once installed, running costs are next to nothing.

Install Efficient Plumbing Technologies

Plumbing has come a long way in recent times, and many new technologies can help you save on water. For example, you might be familiar with flow-reducing aerated taps as they are used in modern home designs. But you can also install movement sensors that supply water when needed and automatic supply timers. Additionally, you can install modern fixtures such as toilets, taps, and showerheads with low-flow outlets. Low-flow outlets don’t impact water pressure but use significantly less water than older systems that allow all water through. If you have a water source that needs to be managed to see what the flow of water is like and make sure your water source is measured correctly then selecting a weir box that helps to measure a low flow will help you in this instance.

Educate Employees About Wastage

Education is vital for reducing water waste within your business. Let your employees know how they can help cut water waste. Getting everyone to reuse water bottles and turn off the taps when they’re cleaning their hands are little things that make a big difference. It might be helpful to encourage employees, customers, and visitors with informative posters. You could also offer incentives to get everyone on board, such as prizes for departments with the most saved water. Of course, not everyone will accept changes at first, but it’s surprising how quickly people adapt.

Summary

Water is a valuable resource and it costs money. However, you can become more sustainable and save a little by harvesting rainwater, recycling greywater, and educating your employees about saving.

Smart Sensors, Smarter Supply Chains: Enhancing Traceability in Food & Beverage

By Julie Starr • June 20, 2025
In today’s competitive food and beverage (F&B) landscape, traceability is no longer a compliance checkbox—it’s a differentiator. The ability to track every step of a product’s journey, from origin to shelf, is vital for regulatory accuracy and to ensure brand integrity, supply chain agility, and consumer trust. Add smart sensors to the mix: the quiet, tireless observers revolutionizing supply chain intelligence. Traceability Has a Data Problem Despite digitization across many F&B operations, most traceability systems still rely on fragmented or manual data inputs. Batch numbers, barcodes, and handwritten logs often stand between a supplier and clarity when things go wrong. This approach struggles with latency and scale. When contamination or delays occur, root cause analysis is slow, costly, and damaging. Smart sensors shift this paradigm by embedding real-time, contextual intelligence into every stage of the supply chain . Whether monitoring humidity in transit or recording fill-level precision in bottling plants, they remove the guesswork by turning physical conditions into structured, time-stamped data. From Passive Monitoring to Active Optimization Sensors used to be reactive tools, alerting operators to anomalies. But smart sensors now play a proactive role in process control. They measure, and they interpret. For example, temperature sensors embedded in cold chain logistics can dynamically adjust cooling systems or flag threshold breaches before spoilage occurs. These advancements reduce waste and loss at a systemic level. In a production facility, smart sensors integrated with PLCs can enforce recipe compliance, verify clean-in-place processes, and detect micro-stoppages in real-time. This enables operations to pivot faster and isolate inefficiencies before they cascade downstream. Trust is Built on Transparency Consumers are paying more attention to what they eat and drink. They’re looking beyond labels, expecting visibility into how ingredients are sourced, processed, and handled. Smart sensors make this level of transparency achievable —without burdening manufacturers with excessive manual oversight. By capturing metadata throughout production and distribution, these sensors create a digital footprint that’s tamper-resistant and instantly accessible. When this data is integrated with a central platform, brands can respond confidently to audits, recalls, and quality assurance challenges with a level of precision that would be impossible through legacy systems. Intelligence Without Infrastructure Overhaul One common misconception is that adding smart sensors requires a top-down reinvention of supply chain infrastructure. In reality, companies can deploy edge sensors in a modular, scalable way. Many modern solutions offer plug-and-play functionality, allowing for fast integration with existing machinery and MES systems. This is where suppliers like alps-machine.com are reshaping expectations. Rather than pushing proprietary ecosystems, they design sensor-ready equipment with interoperability in mind. This future-proofs investment and keeps businesses nimble in the face of regulatory or market shifts. Designing for Data Longevity Sensors are only as powerful as the context they capture. A smart implementation ensures the data collected can be standardized, stored securely, and accessed meaningfully across departments. This means moving beyond local dashboards toward centralized, queryable datasets that inform everything from supplier contracts to marketing claims. As AI and predictive analytics become more accessible, these data-rich environments will unlock new capabilities—such as predicting demand spikes based on real-time freshness indicators or adjusting production schedules dynamically based on in-transit sensor feedback. Final Thoughts: Smarter Isn’t Optional Traceability isn’t solved by more paperwork—it’s solved by embedded intelligence. Smart sensors don’t just help businesses know what happened; they help prevent the wrong things from happening at all. For companies in the food and beverage sector, adopting smart sensors is less about chasing innovation and more about enabling resilience, speed, and confidence in every decision.

Eco-Friendly Garden Prep: Summer Tips for a Greener Business Space

By Julie Starr • June 5, 2025
If you're lucky enough to have a garden as part of your business, taking some time to set it up for summer is a great investment of your energy. Not only will it be ready for your customers to spend time in, but you can also incorporate some eco-friendly elements into it. Many people just think about the property and what eco-friendly updates they can make , but there are plenty that you can implement in your garden. This gives you the best of both worlds. You own a sacred and beautiful place for your customers to spend their summer, and at the same time, you can do your part for a better planet. If this is the route you want to take, then you also need to consider how to do this with the different seasons. To help you on your journey, here are some top tips for preparing your garden for summer. Plant trees and flowers Planting trees and flowers in your garden is a must. It will make a beautiful scene of nature for everyone to enjoy. Trees will provide people and animals with shade, as well as provide a habitat for wildlife. More trees are needed in the world because they purify the air that we breathe. Flowers, especially if you plant with pollinators in mind, can be an excellent way to attract bees and butterflies, which contribute largely to the earth. Use natural pest control When preparing your garden for summer, you can do this more sustainably and kindly by using natural pest control. Simply by planting trees and flowers, you are likely to attract lots of different wildlife, some of which may destroy your efforts. While all wildlife should be considered, you may need to take measures. Some better and more eco-friendly ways you can do this, as opposed to spraying toxic chemicals onto your plants and into the air, you can implement companion planting, using protective nets over your crops, choosing resilient plants, using natural repellents, and encouraging natural predators so nature can do its thing. Maintain your garden Maintaining your garden in itself can make it more eco-friendly. Composting your garden waste regularly, and kitchen waste can help you to reduce overall waste and create nutrient-rich soil. This is a great cycle of sustainability. You can also keep on top of things that need cleaning and replacing, so you can recycle the materials for other garden structures and projects, and repurpose things around your garden before they become waste. If you have features in your garden like a swimming pool, then a regular pool maintenance service is going to be vital in keeping your water consumption to a minimum, as when it is cleaned and maintained, it will need to be drained and refilled less as well as using less energy. You could also consider how you can use natural purification methods to reduce chemical usage and support biodiversity right in your backyard. Your garden is just an eco-friendly project waiting to be built. Use these top tips to help you get started.