Davey , one of Australia’s leading manufacturers, has taken out top honours in the prestigious Product of the Year category of the 2008 GreenPlumbers Awards, for its Aquashield Max. The GreenPlumbers awards have quickly become the leading product awards for sustainable plumbing products in Australia & New Zealand since their inception in 2002.

Davey has embraced sustainability in its internal processes, factory accommodation, and new product development, and after battling it out with manufacturers across Australia, can now claim that it has developed the ‘greenest’ product of the year. Its winning product, the Aquashield Max, is an automatic treatment package for the pressure boosting and disinfection of rainwater that presents a total potential water saving of 240 million litres each year. The typical applications include domestic households, schools, commercial toilet flushing, public buildings and accommodation facilities such as motels, guest houses or bed and breakfast venues – in fact any situation where there is a desire or need to ensure that rainwater is safe for drinking and free of contaminants.

A finalist in several categories this year, the Davey Aquashield Max estimates 2,000 installations each year, predominantly in schools and community buildings. Each building represents a 120 thousand-litre saving, based on 200 square metres of roof, and 600mm of rainfall. This level of rainwater capture would cover 100 per cent of an average school’s internal water consumption.

Accepting the award, Max Ekins, Davey’s Market Manager for Water Conservation and Treatment said, “We’re big supporters of the GreenPlumbers initiative and we just really want to get the message about the importance of environmental sustainability out there. “It’s really exciting to be working on an Australian-made project that’s developed in Australia, and has the potential to actively contribute to water conservation globally.” GreenPlumbers is an innovative training and accreditation initiative developed by the MPMSAA as the gateway to a ‘green’ plumbing business. The GreenPlumbers Awards is the platform upon which the MPMSAA, on behalf of the plumbing industry, acknowledges the contributions made to the environment by individual plumbers and manufacturers. So far the GreenPlumbers training program has saved Australia more than 3 billion litres of water, equivalent to 4700 Olympic-sized swimming pools and millions of dollars in energy savings.

MPMSAA Acting CEO, Mr Vin Ebejer said the quality of projects entered in this year’s GreenPlumbers Awards again exceeded his expectations. “We are seeing a great breadth of innovation in water saving and energy efficient technologies emerging that have the potential to become global leaders. “It is heartening to see the commitment companies like Davey have made to developing environmentally conscious products for our future sustainability and the Aquashield Max really is an exceptional product,” Mr Ebejer said. To date there are more than 10,000 plumbers representing over 5,000 plumbing businesses across Australia and the USA who have completed one or more GreenPlumbers training sessions. The program commenced in 2000 and since then has grown in acceptance, more recently, being adopted by several states in the USA, Canada and New Zealand.

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