Switch to Instant Taps & Make a Difference to our Environment

Switch to Instant Taps & Make a Difference to our Environment

by | Aug 7, 2018 | aquaid, instant tap, Water Coolers

Earlier this year the European Commission announced plans to ban single-use cutlery, plates, straws, cotton buds and balloon sticks by 2021 in a new initiative to reduce marine pollution. We all know how dire the situation is with regards plastic pollution and how it affects our lands and oceans, along with animal and human life alike. So, one of the biggest reasons to switch to instant taps, mains fed water coolers or AquAid refillable 19ltr bottles reused between 30 and 35 times, is the fact that it does away with plastic bottles or greatly reduces the amount of plastic used.

The most common type of plastic pollution in our oceans is nurdles – these are the plastic pellets used to create other plastic products. Along with polystyrene, plastic bags and food containers, they make up the vast majority of marine debris, it is estimated that there are around 165 million tons of plastic pollution in the sea – and it forms the greatest threat to large marine mammals. Not only can they become entangled in the plastic which then curbs their movement and ability to find food, but ingested it can block their digestive system which ultimately leads to starvation. In addition to the physical impact of plastic pollution on creatures, it can also poison their system which in turn affects the food chain and our own source of food. It is estimated that nearly 500,000 marine mammals die each year due to plastic pollution in our oceans.

Left in landfills, plastic does not fare any better. Chlorinated plastic releases dangerous chemicals into the earth which can seep into underground water supplies harming the surrounding ecosystem and drinking water. In addition to this potential water pollution, another form of pollution is the methane gas released as plastic biodegrades which significantly adds to global warming – as arctic ice melts and recent heat waves can attest to.

While great efforts are made to promote responsible recycling, and while collectively we are doing a better job of reducing and re-using, which does minimize global impact, we still have a long way to go. And in a corporate setting one of the easiest ways to do our bit is to provide a more environmentally friendly water alternative for employees – if we can offer them safe, easily accessible drinking water via instant taps, mains fed water coolers or via our 19ltr refillable bottle, it prevents staff from having to buy small half-litre bottles of water which immediately reduces the amount of plastic being disposed of. If you need a tailored water solution that perfectly fits your needs and the needs of your employees, while also benefiting the environment – call AquAid today.

AquAid and the Africa Trust – Twenty and Eighteen

AquAid and the Africa Trust – Twenty and Eighteen

by | Jun 4, 2018 | Africa Trust, aquaid, Charity, Water Coolers

Begun in 2010, the Africa Trust is an AquAid founded charity that works on the principles of wealth creation and sustainable solutions to poverty.

Since our rather humble beginnings in 1998 as a home water cooler supplier, until now, as one of the UK’s leading water cooler suppliers, helping people in need has always been an integral aspect of the AquAid ethos.

Now, in our 20th year of operations, we look back at the annual milestones that evidence the successes of our commitment to charity.

2017 IN REVIEW:

The total number of beneficiaries at the start of 2017 was 2,192,435 and 209,908 new beneficiaries were added by the end of the year. A total of 683 new pumps were installed in 2017 compared to 607 in 2016. Most of these pumps were installed in Zimbabwe with five pumps built in Tanzania and one built in Kenya.

The Africa Trust’s Elephant Pump programme is having a major positive impact on the lives of over a million Zimbabweans who collect clean drinking water and water for productive use every day.  Aside from 683 new pumps installed last year, the Africa Trust continues to implement sustainable wealth creation projects.  Examples are an income generating farm project which now provides a sustained and growing income stream that helps towards the cost of emergency relief. A dairy project and the bananas for fees projects continue to grow with 510 new beneficiaries added.

The Africa Trust also implements wealth creation and sustainable relief projects in:

Kenya: A business skills training programme continues to grow. One such new business started under the programme (a maize mill) now employs over a dozen HIV+ widows who would otherwise have been in desperate poverty following their husbands’ deaths due to AIDS.

Liberia: Positive feedback received about the pumps and toilets installed in previous years. A school was helped to become self-sufficient by starting a project to raise ducks and chickens.

Mozambique:  The ‘Baby’ Elephant Pumps installed for use by smaller family communities are doing well.

Tanzania: Elephant Pumps; Elephant Toilets; Business Skills Training.

Uganda:  Business skills training; job creation; retirement planning (thus helping break the cycle of poverty).

Contact us at AquAid to find out how becoming an AquAid customer equates to ensuring sustainable solutions to poverty and the provision of safe drinking water to those who need it most.

Water, your organs and your health

Water, your organs and your health

by | Jun 4, 2018 | aquaid, Water, Water Coolers

I’ve been reading through my notes for the blogs for this week and it all became a little overwhelming. So I let my brain head out West and the rest of me went to top up on the java.

Then my brain knocked politely, ‘Coo-ee, I’m back’ it warbled.

‘What?’ the coffee-enjoying-rest of me replied. ‘You come up with anything useful out West?’

A lengthy discussion ensued ….

Anyhow, as it turns out, the brain told me it got to thinking about all the other lesser (according to it) but just as vital (according to all of them) organs that we humanoids are blessed with and guess what? ALL OF THEM need sufficient water to keep the g-g-greased lightning performance.

Kidney and Liver Function

One of the liver’s primary functions is to metabolise stored fat into energy. The kidneys are responsible for filtering toxins, wastes, ingested water and salts out of the bloodstream. If you are dehydrated, the kidneys cannot function properly and the liver must work overtime to compensate. As a result, it metabolises less fat, your metabolism slows down to conserve water, which leads to weight gain and can contribute to belly fat.*

The Heart

Dehydration can cause insufficient oxygenation of the tissue of the cardiovascular system. The heart rate increases in response to the tissue oxygen deficit. Tachycardia, or a heart rate greater than 100 beats per minute, occurs.  Severe dehydration can trigger irregular heart rhythms, especially in people with an underlying heart condition.*

Command Central i.e. The Brain

Brain cells require the right amount of water and minerals in each of the cells.  If there is too much water, the cell’s membrane can break; if there is not enough, the cell will shrivel up. When there is brain dehydration, less water is available for brain cells to use. *

Importance of Water

Almost two-thirds of the human body is made up of water and water acts as a natural appetite suppressant. It also helps to regulate your metabolism. When you become dehydrated, your metabolism slows down, affecting how your body burns fat. Your body mistakes thirst for hunger, which leads to increased calorie consumption. This can lead to stubborn fat gathering around your stomach, which is difficult to lose.*

Bearing all of this in mind, also remember that water weight is not the same as ‘blob’ weight, so whereas you may think that because your body is retaining water it means you’re gaining weight, this is not the case. Your body is desperately trying to tell you, by retaining water, that it doesn’t have enough to function properly.

There’s no need for concern though, indeed you can celebrate and revel in the fact that throughout the UK, clean, fresh drinking water transported from source to your office, school or site is readily available from AquAid through our range of water coolers.  Drink up!

 * sourced from an article at Livestrong

The Cost of a Bad Supplier

The Cost of a Bad Supplier

by | May 8, 2018 | aquaid, water cooler

Choosing the right water cooler or water boiler for your company is not always an easy task. Once you’ve established what your needs are, you have to shop around for a reputable supplier and then choose from a myriad of different models and plans. It’s a long-term investment and can seem costly, which is why when choosing between suppliers, people sometimes tend towards the cheaper option, thinking they’ll save money in the long run, but what so many forget is the service element and how that can incur unnecessary costs and lost productivity over time, particularly when a machine breaks down or your office runs out of water.

Imagine the following scenario: an employee discovers the water cooler is broken and spends a few minutes trying to figure out what’s wrong; eventually they realise there’s nothing they can do, so they report it to the office manager – 10 minutes wasted. In the interim, other staff members attempt to use the water cooler only to be disappointed; they then spend a few minutes complaining amongst themselves and struggling to get back to whatever tasks they were busy with – 10 minutes wasted. The office manager puts a call through to the supplier – if it’s a national call centre, research shows that we can spend upwards of 27 minutes on hold waiting for someone to address our problem – 27 minutes wasted. Once the office manager finally reaches the right person who can deal with their issue, they then spend more precious time explaining what’s wrong and why they require a call out – 5 minutes wasted.

If you ever want to know what constitutes bad service, spend some time reading through any of the review aggregators online – it may take days before someone can come out to repair your machine, and if the supplier runs an inefficient service where miscommunication runs rife, it may take more than one visit before your water dispenser is fully functional again. Let’s assume, conservatively, that it takes three days before your water cooler is up and running again. During that time, frustrated employees will spend time querying the progress of the repair and even more time complaining about their lack of access to water – over those three days, there will be at least 60 minutes wasted. Not only will they waste time complaining, but studies show that their general unhappiness will further impact their productivity, so even when they’re not specifically querying or complaining, their efficiency will still be affected.

With a bad supplier, each step along the way is wasted time, lost productivity and eventually lost revenue. If we add together all that lost time, it comes to a total of 112 minutes wasted and if we want to allocate a monetary value to that loss, we can work on the average wage in the UK of £13.94 per hour or 23 pence per minute – which means your company has wasted £25.76 thanks to a bad supplier.

By contrast, when you use a leading water cooler supplier like AquAid, you can rest assured that excellent service and customer satisfaction are of paramount importance. AquAid may be nationwide, but they don’t have call centres; each office has its own administration and delivery department which means your call goes directly where it needs to, and if the above scenario was to happen, they would provide a quick and efficient turnaround that would have you back online in typically 24 hours. AquAid customers spend on average £30 per month or £360 per annum. When shopping around for reputable water cooler suppliers, people will often choose the least expensive option allowing a saving of 5% or in this case £18 per year to sway them, but as becomes evident over time and in the scenario above, that saving is quickly lost to bad service. While AquAid may seem slightly more expensive than some of the entry-level water cooler suppliers, their efficiency and attention to detail will ultimately save you time and money in the long run – unlike a bad supplier, which could end up costing you far more than you’d envisaged.

Single Use Plastics – the way forward

Single Use Plastics – the way forward

by | May 1, 2018 | aquaid, water cooler, Water Coolers

The use of plastic has had significant media attention recently, in particular following the various Blue Planet episodes aired on the BBC. The tone of the debate is highly emotive and even Theresa May recently voiced her opinion on the matter, stating that the House of Commons would ban the use of plastic cups and that the government will recommend that all large businesses do the same.

At AquAid we are keenly aware of the impact using plastic has in our industry, to our customers and on our environment.  We are constantly seeking solutions and alternatives to reduce waste, minimise our carbon footprint and increase the sustainable provision of our water and water products to our customers.

Potential long term options?

  1. Paper cups/cones

Paper cups may seem like an obvious alternative, but they are not.  As paper is porous, all cups contain a lining which means that they cannot easily be recycled.  Unfortunately, although few people may be aware of this, if you are paying to recycle paper cups, these lined cups actually contaminate the recycling batch they go into.

There are cones available without a plastic lining, but they will only hold water for a matter of seconds before it will start seeping through and land on the floor. Whilst these are useful from an environmental perspective, they are less useful from a hydration perspective, the reason organisations have a water dispenser in the first place.

Paper cups cost around 50% more than plastic, with cones priced slightly lower.

  1. Plastic bottles

There is a place for re-usable plastic bottles, however, we need to be aware that a plastic bottle weighs at least 30 times more than does a plastic cup. This then means that using plastic bottles is adding plastic weight and volume rather than reducing it. Even if you re-use a plastic bottle (which some people will re-use 30 times, but others much less so) it has to be borne in mind that the bottle needs to be cleaned which has its own environmental impact.

  1. Use bio-degradable/compostable material 

The idea of using bio-degradable plastic is very appealing at first as people picture it literally turning into dust.  The problem is that in order for the plastic to compost, it needs to be kept in very specific circumstances only achievable in an industrial composting environment. Not only are there very few such facilities in the UK, there are also no nationwide collection schemes in place for them.  If bio-degradable cups end up in landfill they can be more harmful to the environment than normal plastic cups, as is indicated in various reports and case studies from authorities in the field*.  Added to this, bio-degradable plastic is made from corn starch – which again brings with it a significant impact on the environment. As a final point, bio-degradable plastic is considerably more expensive than regular plastic.

The solution

Because of the focus directed at the issue of single use cups, we may be forgetting the difference between litter and recycling. Plastic on its own is not an issue – unrecycled plastic is. Bearing this in mind, we believe there is a viable solution, one which will be of benefit to not only ourselves and our customers, but also to our environment.

Recycling plastic cups

Upon consultation with a number of recycling authorities, in particular BIFFA, a leading integrated waste management company, we’ve established as follows:

  • The cups that AquAid supply are made of a single type of plastic. The benefit of this is that easy to recycle and a valuable resource that can be repurposed and resold.
  • Our plastic cups are easily recycled if placed in a dry mixed recycling (DMR) bin. These are bins which take cans, paper, cardboard and plastic. Not only will the material placed in a DMR be recycled, but DMR bins cheaper to have emptied than a normal waste bin.

We believe that we have established a practical, cost effective and viable solution to using our drinking cups and are inviting our customers to contact their local recycling companies to confirm that they offer the dry mixed recycling bins (DMR), to assist with the recycling of not only plastic cups, but also the many other recyclable items found in offices up and down the country.

Should you wish for any additional information about our recycling plan, kindly e-mail us at nationalaccounts@aquaidwatercoolers.co.uk 

* sources: articles in The Guardian; UN News

New feature online at AquAid – Place an Order / Book an Engineer

New feature online at AquAid – Place an Order / Book an Engineer

by | Apr 10, 2018 | aquaid, water cooler, Water Coolers

When we see the most recent statistics of how many people in the UK make use of the internet, these figures probably won’t come as any surprise. What may be surprising though are the demographics of online use.

According to a statistical bulletin from the Office of National Statistics:

  • In Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2017, 89% of adults in the UK had recently used the internet (in the last 3 months), up from 88% in 2016; while 9% had never used the internet, down from 10% in 2016.
  • Virtually all adults aged 16 to 34 years were recent internet users (99%), in contrast with 41% of adults aged 75 years and over.
  • 90% of men and 88% of women were recent internet users, up from 89% and 86% in 2016.
  • Recent internet use among women aged 75 and over had almost trebled from 2011.
  • Northern Ireland is catching up with the other UK regions in recent internet use, reaching 84% in 2017; however, it remained the region with the lowest recent use.

At AquAid, we believe it’s of paramount importance to be at the forefront in being able to offer our customers easy access to our wide range of water coolers, water related products and water services.

In view of this, we developed a website some 12 years ago, which we’ve constantly striven to keep as user friendly and informative as possible.  In keeping with this philosophy we launched a new website in January 2017, introducing a cleaner, more modern look whilst also incorporating a significantly more user-friendly operation.

Looking at the above stats and considering the marked increase in online queries we receive on a daily basis, this has definitely been of benefit to both our customers and ourselves.

Based on the successes brought about since the launch of our new website, we’ve looked at a number of customer-centric options.  The most recent addition is the new Place an Order / Book an Engineer feature.

Should you wish to contact us online, whether you have a query or enquiry, require information or would like to order a water cooler, order your bottled water or book a service, all you need to do is simply click on the Place an Order / Book an Engineer button at the AquAid website, fill in your information, press send and we’ll take it from there