Eau de Vie, an environmentally-friendly system for producing filtered, chilled bottled water from mains water, has won a Green Apple Award to be presented at the House of Commons in November. The Green Apple Awards, organised by The Green Organisation, began in 1994 and have become established as the country’s major recognition for environmental endeavour among companies, councils, communities and countries.
The Eau de Vie range offers a complete, branded package, from the stylish and attractive ‘front of house’ water dispensers, bottles and flasks to the backroom wash racks, carriers and rack dollies. The Eau de Vie system is becoming popular in restaurants, cafes and conference venues as a sustainable alternative to buying in bottled mineral water.
At the heart of the Eau de Vie package is a special filter system called SilverSix, which removes the impurities that adversely affect the flavour and smell of mains water. The filtered water is then chilled and dispensed through a tap which delivers still and sparkling variants. Once bottled, the water can be sealed with colour-coded, branded tamperproof seals.
Research by Biothinking International found that using on-site reusable bottles filled with fresh filtered water is the most environmentally friendly way to serve chilled water from a glass bottle. Using water supplied in disposable glass bottles results in 500 times more landfill waste and over 13 times the carbon footprint of the Eau de Vie system, while single-use PET bottles result in 40 times more waste and over four times as many CO2 emissions.
Eau de Vie has ensured that this is a very simple system to manage: from the water filtering to the handling of the reusable bottles, everything is streamlined to assist ease of operation. Even installation is designed to minimise disruption: Eau de Vie supplies both free-standing units and remote cassettes, giving owners and designers a flexible system that can easily be integrated into the site.
Eau de Vie from Classeq is designed to offer a ‘complete package’ on-site bottled water system for caterers. This includes pre- and after-sales support, from site-survey to commissioning, staff training and on-going maintenance. Systems are available to rent or buy.
Judges for the Green Apple Awards are drawn from the Environment Agency, the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, the Chartered Institution for Wastes Management and other independent bodies.
Classeq is part of the Winterhalter UK group. For information on the Eau de Vie range, including details of your nearest stockist, call 0844 225 9249 see www.eaudevie.com or email feedback@classeq.co.uk