We are focusing on reducing the consumption of resources in our production processes and fleet vehicles in order to create a more sustainable environment.
Water
Water is the medium to carry cleaning chemicals, contain heat and suspend emulsified soil during laundering. We purchase fresh water from the municipal water supply and discharge pre-treated waste water into the municipal sewer system. Huebsch has extensive systems in place to take rinse water from a light soil application and reuse it in a heavier soil formula. As a result all water is actually used at least twice before pre-treatment and discharge. Huebsch facilities are licensed and monitored by their local Publicly Operated Treatment Works (POTW.)
Electrical
Washing machines, dryers, boilers, and pumps use a significant amount of electricity. We are striving to reduce consumption by upgrading motors with inverter drives, replacing light fixtures with high efficiency units, and minimizing equipment run time. We are also taking a load off the grid by running equipment during off peak and scheduling equipment to reduce maximum demand at any time.
Chemical
The use of strong chemicals is minimized at Huebsch because of our Customer Focused Production (CFP) cellular processing. Huebsch uses small cells and small wash batches. As a result, we separate textiles that are heavily soiled verses lightly soiled and adjust the chemical doses in the wash formulas accordingly. Most industrial laundries rely on huge, mass production equipment and wash everything according to the heaviest soil in the load. As a result they use far more chemicals than is necessary to achieve adequate cleanliness.
Oil/Natural Gas
Natural Gas is used extensively in laundries to dry textiles in dryers and to heat water in boilers. Huebsch natural gas consumption is minimized by utilizing technologies such as waste water heat recovery, boiler stack economizers and dryer stack heat recovery.
Vehicles
Huebsch has two projects running to minimize the miles driven to serve our customers and to maximize the fuel efficiency of the vehicles that we operate. Utilizing sophisticated software we plan our delivery routes to minimize miles driven.
CO2 Emissions
We have recently begun currently tracking our CO2 emission numbers and will report them as soon as we can. Several potential projects are being researched that would reduce our CO2 emissions including the use of solar energy to heat water, geothermal energy to heat and cool our facilities, wind energy to create electricity, and co-generation for electricity and hot water.
