ETSA Awards - A profile in sustainability: Hr Bjorkmans Entrémattor

The first ever ETSA awards took place at the ETSA congress on 12 May, there were so many amazing applicants for the "Sustainable Leadership and Recycling Award", however, the decided winner was Hr Bjorkmans Entrémattor. Hr Bjorkmans Entrémattor won this award because of its "Water Recycling project", this project consisted of a new water recycling system that took nearly two years to develop. Today, it now allows for 98% of their dirty water and laundry water to be recycled. This will save around 16 million liters of water annually, the patented closed water recycling system uses low washing temperatures and special detergents in order to increase the water reuse rate up to 98%, this has resulted in sizable energy and water savings. The system has also prevented a large volume of used and contaminated water from entering the municipal wastewater treatment cycle.

Hr Björkmans Entrémattor is a top-ranking eco-friendly mat rental and laundry service enterprise. They employ 50 people, operate in eight Swedish cities and regions and circulate 34, 000 mats. The company is almost entirely fossil fuel-free in both distribution and services. They unities biogas, wind power, and solar energy to heat their premises and the laundry water which is always kept at a low temperature. Most of the distribution vehicles run on biogas, some on HVO100 and some are electric. On top of that, they have their own eco-label, EcoSmartSolutionTM, guaranteeing our 6,500 customers a higher environmental standard than the Nordic Swan Ecolabel; whereas the Nordic Swan Ecolabel allows a water consumption as high as 6.5 liters of water per kg laundry, their water consumption is kept at 0.45 liters per kg. Moreover, Hr Bjorkmans Entrémattor is also a member of the "Swedish Textile Service Association (Tvätteriförbundet)", ETSA's valued Swedish partners in its National Associations.

Hr Bjorkmans Entrémattor is working hard to become more sustainable and beneficial to the ecosystem with their new project. Saving water and energy where they can and recycling the water at a 98% reuse rate is a big step in the right direction of sustainable leadership and recycling. Hr Bjorkmans Entrémattor was presented with the award on 12 May during the ETSA Congress in Rome, a huge congratulations to them. If you'd like to find out more about this project, you can click here for English, or here for Swedish, you can also find a resource page linked at the bottom of this article with more information.