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any manufacturers in Alberta are getting serious about being lean and green. How that looks, however, can be different for every company. Even companies servicing and supplying the manufacturing sector are getting behind the movement, and they’re ready to work with manufacturers to tackle environmental challenges head-on. Meet three companies who are taking the message to heart and making a positive difference for industry and consumers across the province and beyond.
PHOTO CREDIT: JANA HANOVA / SWIRLTEX
Swirltex When you think of wastewater, you might not necessarily think ‘innovation’ at first. Calgary’s Swirltex is trying to change that. Dealing with wastewater – such as sewage effluent, produced water from oil and gas extraction, process water in food & beverage production, and even pond water – is an absolute necessity in today’s industrial environment. While the need to effectively manage wastewater has not significantly changed, Swirltex has set out to change how companies do it and help them do so more efficiently. Swirltex isn’t a new filter material. Rather, it’s a new way to move the wastewater through existing filtration media. “We change the way the water moves before it gets to the filter, and we do this using less power than a traditional system,” says Swirltex CEO, Melanie McClare.
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Prairie Manufacturer Magazine • Winter 2020
“The system separates solids and liquids based on buoyancy,” says McClare. “We manipulate the contaminants in the water to keep them away from the filter membrane, and this lets more of the water through and keeps the filter cleaner longer.” McClare says, “with our technology, we’re able to deploy membranes where they were previously uneconomical. We can use fewer membranes to achieve full results, and we can process more water for the same amount of input.” Swirltex is still in the early stages of the business, but McClare says the company is ready to take on more and more challenges. “We’re selling wastewater treatment as a service to companies, as opposed to the traditional capital expenditure for customers. We can deploy our systems seasonally, if needed, and we can come in to do a retrofit on existing systems and provide a polish on the back end of existing infrastructure.”
