New Water Recycling Plant for Axminster Carpets Ltd’s Wool Processing Factory

Axminster Carpets Ltd, the renowned manufacturer of fine carpets, has installed a large water recycling plant (WRP) at its Buckfast wool processing factory in Devon, England. It is believed that this is the UK’s first wastewater recycling plant (WRP) that has a closed loop system with a target “zero discharge” to sewer.

The filtration plant, including the pre-filters and membrane systems, was designed, built and commissioned by Axium Process (UK) and has a total membrane area of 3000 m2, including both tubular ultrafiltration and spiral wound reverse osmosis membranes.

The complete WRP was supplied by Cornwall based Puriti Ltd and is designed to recycle all of the company’s wastewater. Only a small quantity of slurry leaves site for further processing by anaerobic digester, the final products being compost and electricity. The water recovered is pure, free of mineral salts and natural organic matter and is ideal for dyeing. Having to deal with the variability of the supply from the River Dart is eliminated. The water recycling process includes staged filtration followed by staged evaporation of the concentrates.
Of particular interest to many manufacturers is the fact that the company will save a substantial amount of money with zero discharge to sewer. Also, the use of chemicals has been much reduced and a significant amount of energy saved by returning hot water for process applications.

This WRP is currently processing up to 400m³ of factory effluent per day, the total wastewater volume from Axminster’s wool scouring and dye house operations.