Blenheim Water At the Bottling Plant

Transcription

1 Blenheim Water At the Bottling Plant On the Blenheim Estate there is a Bottling Plant which produces bottled still and sparkling water. This booklet explains how the water is taken from the ground, bottled and stored. The booklet also highlights the recycling which is done as part of the bottling process. School trips to the bottling plant are led by Mr T Rawden, the Bottling Plant Manager. Mr Rawden explains the complete industrial process from water being taken from the ground to departing to world wide destinations.

2 Outside the Bottling Plant The water comes through a bore hole that is drilled down to a depth of 46 metres. There is a pump at the bottom of the pipe and propellers at intervals in the pipe which push the water up into the holding tank. Next to the holding tank is the large sand filter. This has various grades of sand inside, with mesh between the layers of sand to stop the sand falling through. The water goes in at the top and filters through the layers. The impurities (such as iron) are filtered out by the sand. The water makes channels through the sand after a while so every two weeks or one week if the plant is busy, air is blown through the sand to clear the water channels. Trevor Rawden explains the sand filter. >>>> Inside the Bottling Plant Brand new bottles are used rather than recycled bottles. (Recycled bottles need a lot of cleaning. They may have labels on them that would need removing, chewing gum etc. To clean recycled bottles would need hot water and detergent and so would be very expensive.) The new bottles are blasted with mineral water. This water was once used to clean out the cow sheds, but now the cows have gone and so the water simply goes back into the ground. Next the bottles are filled. The same line can do still water or sparkling water. Liquid CO2 is used to add the sparkle to the water.

3 The beginning of the production line. New bottles coming in at the start of the process. <<<< After the bottles have been filled they move on to the machine which places the cap on the top. The bottles all have a thread on them but the cap does not. The machine tightens the cap in place and the cap moulds itself to the thread of the bottle. The caps are made of aluminium. After the cap has been put in place the bottle moves onto the labelling machine. A sensor shows when the bottle goes through and places the label around the front of the bottle. There are green labels for still water and red labels for sparkling water. Next there is date coder which puts on to the caps the date and time when the water was bottled. The machine which puts the caps on the bottles.>>>> The part of the production line where the labels are put on to the bottles.

4 After a bottle has been labelled a person places the bottles in a tray. All trays are printed with the size and type of water and with the date. The tray then goes through a machine which shrink wraps a plastic cover over the bottles. This stops the bottles from moving around in transit and so stops breakages. The shrink wrap machine is very hot so the tray of bottles then goes through a machine which blows cool air on it. <The cooler The > shrink wrapper Next a person stacks the trays of bottles on to a blue pallet and a fork lift truck moves the full pallet to the store. The water is stored in barns which used to be part of the farm. There are 5 permanent staff working at the bottling plant and temporary staff are taken on when needed. A typical shift is 8.00 am to 4.30 am. When busy the staff will sometimes do double shifts and finish at am.

5 < A storage area and a fork lift truck. The bottling plant machines can only do one kind of water at a time. When they have produced enough still bottles of water the machine is stopped, the labeller is changed, the caps are changed and the CO2 added for sparkling water. The change over process can take up to 3 hours. The plant produces different size bottles of water and again everything has to be changed to suit whichever size is going through. The sizes are 33cl, 75cl and 1 litre. The plant has another machine to fill blue cooler bottles (plastic) for offices. When these big blue plastic containers are filled with water they are kept in the dark or covered in black plastic to stop algae developing in the water. These plastic containers can be used again but the glass bottles are only used once. The empty bottles arrive on brown pallets. Once full of water the bottles are placed on blue pallets. The blue pallets are stronger than the brown pallets. The brown pallets are reused for transporting the recycled cardboard. There are over 2 million empty bottles stored in one of the barns. The bottling plant can fill about 10,000 bottles a day.

6 Recycling The Bottling Plant makes a point of recycling whenever possible. Outside one of the storage barns there is a tall blue compactor. Plastic is placed in this and then the machine squashes it down. 1 pack is made up of 4 days worth of plastic. This plastic is then recycled. A company pays 150 for a ton of this plastic. The Bottling Plant also recycles its cardboard. There is cardboard between each layer of bottles delivered to the plant. This cardboard is bailed and then a company takes it away paying 50 for a ton. Broken glass is also recycled. A company comes to collect the broken glass but no money is earnt from this. The water is sold to hotels, restaurants and public houses. Trevor Rawden and Combe School.

7 For further information and bookings please contact:- The Education Officer, Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, OX20 1PX. Telephone: e mail education@blenheimpalace.com

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