Highly Innovative in the Field - Kärcher Futuretech Delivers a Water Filling Station for the Afghanistan Mission of the German Bundeswehr, May 2006

 
Winnenden, May 2006 – Economical water bottling at the highest quality level – soon also in Afghanistan. In the framework of the ISAF mission of the Federal German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr), the Kärcher Water Bottling Plant 700 will be used in Central Asia from October 2006. The system, which is called Water Filling Station (WAS) in the Bundeswehr jargon, will be set up in Mazar-e Sharif as a pilot project in connection with the relocation of the German Mission Forces from Kabul to North Afghanistan.

Following on from the WTC 1600 GT-BW and WTC 6000 BW water purification systems, the Water Bottling Plant 700 is another Kärcher system which has found its way to Afghanistan as the logical further development within the chain of mobile drinking water supply. In the WBP 700, PET bottles with a capacity of 1 litre are produced from small light-weight pre-forms in the field. These bottles are then filled with freshly purified drinking water (produced by the WTC 1600 GT-BW and WTC 6000 BW), capped and labelled under hygienic conditions. This reduces the logistical effort for the field camp decisively and helps to save the often enormous expenditures on personnel, fuel, trucks and convoy accompanying vehicles. By using pre-forms the volume handling is reduced by more than 90% while its weight is even reduced by more than 95%. Up to 15,000 bottles can be filled every day. "Economical water bottling at the highest quality level is guaranteed. The Water Bottling Plant 700 is a logical further development of our systems in the area of mobile water purification and has a huge potential“, says the Managing Director of Kärcher Futuretech, Helmut Stelzmüller, to explain the reason for this extension of the product range. "Experiences have shown that clean water is of top priority especially in field missions such as that in Afghanistan.” 

The WBP 700 already met with a positive response on the American continent in autumn last year. At the U.S. NATO headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia, more than 100 international project executives participated in a compact experiment in the area of mobile water purification. The highlight was the presentation and successful live demonstration of the Water Bottling Plant 700. Further demonstrations of the WBP 700 were carried out at the US Army location in Fort Lee and Fort Belvoir and filled the American executives with great enthusiasm.
The WBP 700 had its debut in summer 2005, in which the mobile drinking water bottling plant was introduced to the general public on the occasion of the 2nd International Water Workshop in the Kärcher premises in Winnenden. 

Kärcher Futuretech plans, develops and produces systems and devices that help to solve the problems of the future. Kärcher Futuretech Systems with their patented, forward-looking problem solutions are in daily use within more than 100 armed forces, civil defence and relief organisations all over the world.