“Water to Go” for the British Armed Forces – Innovative Water Bottling Plant Success in Afghanistan, April 2008

Winnenden, April 2008 – At the end of February, Kärcher UK Ltd completed the installation of a Water Bottling Plant for British Armed Forces in Afghanistan. The plant, which is located in Camp Bastion in the Helmund Province, has been provided to Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), a company that conducts logical support for the British Military.

The plant purifies, bottles and labels the water from local boreholes and can produce 50,000 one-litre bottles a day.  This is only the second plant of its kind and the first ever in its particular configuration of two water purification systems and four water bottling systems.

KÄRCHER Futuretech has also provided millions of PET preforms to be used in the plant. To make the one litre bottles, these preforms are warmed in a heating carousel and then blown up in a mould using compressed air. The bottles are then placed on a conveyor track, which transports them through the filling, capping and labelling stations. Finally, the bottles are banded into six-packs and stacked onto pallets.

The components included two WTC 1600 treatment systems, which can decontaminate and desalinate 1600 litres an hour; and four WBP 700s, which can produce up to 700 one litre bottles per hour. Each component was housed in a separate 20 ft ISO container, which allows either part or all of the system to be redeployed to new locations.

The equipment will allow huge cost savings for the British forces. Previously, bottled water was trucked, at a huge cost, to the British military camp from Pakistan. This required over thirty times the number of trucks that will be now being required to transport preforms.

Mobile Water Purification - at a glance

Powerful. With its reliable and innovative water purification systems, developed by people for people, KÄRCHER Futuretech’s equipment provides help where it is needed. Depending on the actual requirement, the systems of the Waterclean series produce 10,000 to 240,000 litres of tasty drinking water per day – enough to supply up to 60,000 persons. And well-portioned in bags by the innovative “Water Packaging System” or filled in bottles by the “Water Bottling Plant”, clean drinking water is a decisive factor for the health of every person. This underlines the claim of the KÄRCHER Futuretech water purification concept: “From source to consumption.”

KÄRCHER Futuretech plans, develops and produces systems and devices that help to solve the problems of the future. KÄRCHER Futuretech Systems with their patented, future orientated problem solutions are used on a daily basis by more than 100 armed forces, civil defence and relief organisations all over the world.