Reuse for Development Aid
When you turn on the tap, water comes out! Clean, reliable, always and everywhere. At least that's how it is in the Netherlands, and in all the developed countries around us. It's so common that we don't even think about it. Fortunately.
Unfortunately, in large parts of the world, it is not so common at all. Although the presence of water can be called a primary condition for life, there are many tens of millions of people in the world for whom getting good water is a life-and-death problem every day, who have to resort to polluted water, or who have no water at all. The consequences are obvious: human and animal disease, dehydration, famine, war, death.
Many development aid projects therefore focus precisely on helping to set up and improve water supply, purification and distribution. KROHNE Netherlands has decided to contribute to this. From our own expertise and with our own products.
Reason
Zoals zo vaak, moet er een specifieke aanleiding zijn waardoor de ogen worden geopend. Bij ons was dat een verzoek van Waterleidingmaatschappij BrabantWater.
BrabantWater is samen met andere organisaties betrokken bij een project in Sudan. Het project heeft tot doel een onderhoudsplan op te zetten voor de stad Gedaref, een waterzuiveringsinstallatie in gebruik te nemen, pompen te installeren en een watermeter herstelwerkplaats in te richten. Gebruikte huishoudelijke watermeters, ondermeer uit Nederland, worden ter plaatse weer gebruiksklaar gemaakt.
Er zijn echter niet alleen huishoudelijke watermeters nodig (die overigens niet zoals bij ons in een huis worden gebruikt, maar op een distributiepunt in een wijk), maar ook grote meters, bijvoorbeeld gekoppeld aan pompstations. Er was zelfs een aantal flowmeters beschikbaar, tif 60, al wel 20 jaar oud, maar met wat onderhoud nog jaren bruikbaar.
BrabantWater vroeg KROHNE om mee te helpen de oude meters weer in orde te maken. Hoewel dit type flowmeter niet meer wordt geproduceerd, waren er nog wel enkele technici in het bedrijf die de Tif 60 nog kunnen dromen. Zij hielpen de apparaten te reconditioneren. Hoewel het natuurlijk niet de meest moderne meters zijn, zijn ze na deze "reanimatie" weer uitstekend bruikbaar voor ontwikkelingsprojecten en dus een uitstekend alternatief voor de aanschaf van kostbare nieuwe apparatuur.
What do we do?
A large number of organisations contribute to water projects in a wide range of developing countries. The contributions are often very concrete; knowledge transfer; practical implementation money and materials.
KROHNE's contribution falls mainly into the first and last category.
Knowledge transfer: providing instruction on equipment reconditioning and maintenance where necessary
Materials: We make used, mostly (economically) depreciated, but after reconditioning excellently usable flowmeters available to projects again.
A depot has been set up on our premises for this purpose. The meters are collected there, checked for usability, reconditioned and stored until a request for such a meter is received from a project.
Who are the flowmeters for and what are they used for?
The flow meters we collect and recondition as part of the Reuse for Development project are destined for water supply projects in developing countries.
We never donate the meters directly, but always through a recognised organisation. Together with the organisation, we consider which water meters are suitable and how much we can supply. We are now in contact with quite a few organisations in this field, including Aqua for All and Water is our world, all of which are very enthusiastic about our initiative and keen to make use of our offer.
The meters are used for many purposes. Measuring is knowing, which is also very important in developing countries:
Fair distribution: if you know how much water you have, you can distribute it fairly,
Detecting leaks: by measuring (at the beginning and at the end of a main pipe), you can find out whether a pipe network is leaking and therefore losing precious water unnecessarily,
By measuring, you can add exactly the right amounts of aluminium sulphate. This is indispensable when purifying water,
Cost calculation, By measuring you can also pass on the cost fairly to the user.
Where do flowmeters come from?
Of course, we ourselves do not have any used flow meters. So we appeal to all our customers, when they decide to replace a flow meter, not to throw away the old one, but to contact KROHNE. Companies that donate their used flow meters to the project we will (if desired) list them on this site as a supporter of the project. Of course, we guarantee the giver that we do not sell the meters and only offer them to water projects supported by recognised development aid organisations. When a flow meter is actually donated to a project, the giver will receive notification from us, together with further information about the project.
Get involved! Return your old flowmeter to us!
Meanwhile, there is already demand from projects for a good number of flow meters. But as we do not have any used flow meters of our own, we can only meet the demand if used meters are made available by you as a user of KROHNE flow meters , or possibly flow meters of another brand.
Which ones are suitable?
Actually, all used flowmeters are suitable, large capacity, small capacity, in good condition, in bad condition (usually we can also restore a meter in bad condition, back to good condition). When flow meters have been used for water applications, or other non-hazardous substances (beverages, for example,) there is no problem. When they have been used in chemical applications, we obviously have to carefully check whether it can still be used responsibly for (drinking) water applications.
Quid pro quo:
Companies that submit one (or more) flow meters to us earn a mention (if they appreciate it) on this site. Moreover, after your meter has been donated to a project, you will receive a message about this and further information about the project in question.
Further information and application:
You can contact us with project-related questions or offers at infonl@krohne.com
Of course, you can also contact the KROHNE technical advisor you are in contact with.
Participating companies
We would like to warmly thank the companies below who contributed to the project by providing one or more flow meters:
Brabant Water
Damen Dredging
Eneco
Essent
Evides
Hoogheemraadschap Hollands Noorderkwartier
Waterschap Brabantse Delta
Shell International Noordwijkerhout
KROHNE Altometer
Thank you very much !