The Savewater! Awards®

Plant Growers Australia (PGA), is thrilled to be selected as a finalist in the National 2011 savewater! awards® in the large business category. During these award presentations it was also announced that PGA is a finalist in the Prime Minister's Water Wise Award.

The savewater! awards® are now in their ninth year, and have emerged as Australia's leading awards for water sustainability. These prestigious awards recognise and reward excellence in water conservation and efficiency by business, government, schools, local communities and individuals.

The Prime Minister's Water Wise Award is the nation's premier award recognising water efficiency excellence by commercial and industrial water users.

PGA is a Melbourne-based wholesale nursery that produces and supplies over 1 million plants to the Australian garden and landscape industry annually. The nursery is renowned for its cultivation of new and unique varieties, some of which are exported and grown around the world.

Recognising the need to improve the nursery's water usage practices, PGA embarked on a comprehensive irrigation project in 2007. The aim of the project was to develop a total irrigation system that delivered efficient water application to plants, improved collection and storage capabilities, and the use of recycled water for most irrigation purposes.

At a cost of $346,000, the nursery has significantly increased the capacity of the reticulation pond, installed additional water storage tanks and a chlorine dioxide unit for water treatment, and implemented high efficiency sprinklers and an irrigation pipe network throughout the property.

The new 500,000 litre storage tanks has also given PGA the ability to hold large amounts of recycled water ready for irrigation.

As a result of these measures, PGA has reduced their mains water consumption by 66% or 789,000 litres for the period 2010-11, after a 91% reduction during the previous 12 months. Savings over the whole project now mean PGA is using approximately 12 mega litres a year less and its outdoor irrigation relies almost solely on recycled water

There have been a number of other environmental benefits associated with the project, including the reduction of crop fertilisation due to nutrient retention in recycled water, and the reduction of energy output with the installation of variable flow, energy efficient pumps.

PGA recognizes that it is fantastic for the company and all the staff involved in the project to not only be seeing the benefits of water conservation ourselves, but to be recognised in both these prestigious awards