Towards an efficient use of water in the bottled water making process through the Water Footprint calculation

MAINARDI REMIS, JUAN MARTÍN; GUTIERREZ CACCIABUE, DOLORES; RAJAL, VERONICA BEATRIZ

Guayaquil

Conferencia; IWA-IDB Innovation Conference on Sustainable Use of Water: Cities, Industry and Agriculture.; 2019

Bottled water consumption has widely increased around the world due to the lack of trust on tap water quality and also its association to a healthy lifestyle. However, the current quantity of water necessary to obtain bottled water is not quite known. The aim of this work was to calculate the Water Footprint (WF) of a bottled water industry and to propose improvements regarding its use. Data from a small plant located in Salta (Argentina) was obtained and critical steps within the process and regarding water use were identified. Blue, grey, indirect and total WF were calculated. Three different scenarios were proposed to analyze and thus optimize water use. Total WF for one-year production was 31.5 × 106 l, being the indirect WF the highest (78%), followed by the blue (14%) and grey (8%). Scenarios which best optimized water use were the one that considers the use of groundwater instead of tap water as raw material; and electricity reduction, both related to indirect consumption.