Water, a fully controlled resource
Published on 3/2/2023
Updated on 8/26/2024
Water is precious, the leading natural resource of our planet that is essential for all forms of life.
Water is the major constituent of the skin, explaining why SILAB chose this physiological milieu to produce its natural cosmetic active ingredients and to maximize their efficacy.
Water is the major extraction solvent and the company makes every effort to limit its consumption, maintain its quality and preserve natural ecosystems.
SILAB’s water
Where does it come from?
The Longeyroux peat land of Haute-Corrèze on the Millevaches plateau, in the foothills of the Massif central is the source of the Vézère river, less than 70 km from SILAB’s site. Amid a considerable biodiversity, this region of a thousand sources is where SILAB’s water comes from.
Discover the video of SILAB’s water story.
An impeccable quality
Water is a natural raw material that just like all others requires full control. In order to guarantee product quality and protect equipment, water treatment processes upstream from production units ensures the use of water with consistently high quality.
Whether city, softened or reverse osmosis water, it must comply with a quality control governed by very strict specifications. In order to ensure rapid reactivity, some in line measurements are automated: turbidity, conductivity and temperature. In addition of in-house microbiological analyses and monthly tests by an independent laboratory validate the absence of pathogens in the different water qualities of water used.
A lofty objective
Reduce by 50% the water consumption required to manufacture 1 kg of product between 2019 and 2025
A dedicated team
A working group of ten people monitors the control of water consumptions on SILAB’s site. Created from Environment, Projects, Maintenance, Productions, R&D and Quality services, they regularly and permanently monitor consumptions, identify paths for improvement, implement preventive and corrective action plans, and sensitize personnel on the optimized management of the resource.
Detailed monitoring of consumptions
Since 2020, 130 water meters on the site have been used for specific monitoring. They have enabled the precise understanding of points of consumption. This work has yielded excellent results, since the ratio of water consumption per product unit decreased by 20% between 2019 and 2023, in particular by the detection of anomalies or the optimization of some processes. This dynamic will be maintained in the future!
Focus on the “Re-Use”* project
A major lever has been identified for reaching the objective of reducing water consumption per product unit: recycling CIP (Cleaning in place) waste water.
CIP is the automatic cleaning step of production installations and is the largest consumer of water on the site. Begun in 2021, this large scale project involves recycling the waste water from these cleaning phases and treating it to obtain softened water.
The goal is to store this water in the existing soft water system and reuse it in certain steps of the industrial process in a perspective of water saving.
Principle
- Sort waste water to recover “clean” water
- Treat waste water (soft water quality)
- Reuse waste water (product and CIP)
Following a quantitative and qualitative study of our waste waters, a pilot trial was conducted in 2022 to validate the treatment system and define the scale for an industrial installation.
Project objectives
It is planned to implement the project in 2025.
*Action financed with the support of the Adour-Garonne water agency.
