Marietta Daily Journal

Clean Profit

By David Elmore
Marietta Daily Journal Business Editor

"It's certainly the outlook on financials," said Austin Ashley, director of laundry support services at WellStar. "And it's the right thing to do." The 80,000 square-foot facility, which services all of WellStar's five hospitals and more than 60 other facilities, has installed a $260,000 filtration system from AquaRecycle™ of Marietta.

The system, consisting of giant barrel cylinders and scores of elec-tronic gadgets, will disinfect and clean at least 42 million gallons of laundry wastewater per year, decreasing the amount of city water use by 85 percent and the discharge into sewers by 95 percent. That means the facility will use 36 million fewer gallons of city water annually at its current levels and discharge about 40 million fewer gallons into the areas sewer system.

"This is 100 percent recycled, not reused, water," said Jeff Lebedin, president of AquaRecycle™, noting that the complete system is the first of its kind in the country. "It's amazing how much water is saved." WellStar expects to save more than $200,000 annually in water and sewer costs. "We will most likely recover the cost of our investment in the recycling system within 18 months," Ashley said. "We're saving $20,000 to $25,000 a month now." Lebedin predicted it might be as early as 12 months. Because the recycled water is warm, the facility, which has 127 employees and runs 18 hours a day, may save from $100,000 to $150,000, Ashley said. The warm water will already be near the high temperatures needed for cleaning laundry, so it can save on gas-heating bills.

The filtration system at the laundry was the first for AquaRecycle™, which has since installed a similar one at the airport Embassy Suites and is working with the Ritz Carlton in Buckhead and a yacht service seeking one on the island of Tortilla in the Caribbean. "Hotels and hospital systems are perfect laundry operations for our recycle system," Lebedin said. "Not only are they desperate for ways to cut operating costs and increase profits, they are imposing internal directives requiring environmental savings programs." The high-tech system is the first complete recycling system in the country, Lebedin said, because it is a "100 percent closed loop and complete pressurized system."

WellStar's laundry facility, which is eight years old, has already attracted businesses people from across the world because of its high-tech machines and sophisticated operation, said Ashley, who worked with National Linen Service for 28 years before WellStar. Sheets, towels and garments are separated by workers into bright-blue bags, that are hung from the high ceiling on conveyors, which drop their contents into metal machines that swirl, clean and sanitize before sending the white goods to a high-heat dryer.

After the washing process, the water is sent through the AquaRecycle™ barrel cylinders for reduction of sediment, and finally for irradication of microbes. The final clean water is virtually as pure as tap water, Lebedin said, noting that the particulate in the water is about 650 and that tap water is about 500.

Environmental regulations generally call for water to have less than 2,000 parts, he said. "We've done a lot of research and go through a lot of pains to ensure sanitation," Lebedin said, noting that his system removes oxygen from the water to kill bacteria and then shines ultraviolet light on it to remove most of the remaining germs. "And there's not a documented case of bacteria surviving dryers at 260 degrees," he said, referring to the intense drying process each garment must go through. It was a joint venture between Cobb and Kennestone hospitals to consolidate laundry operations that helped spur the merger of the two hospitals into what would become WellStar Health System.