awards  printing - digital 
For the first time in its five-year history, the prestigious Savewater Awards are open to printers outside Victoria through the ‘product innovations’ category. This gives printers from around Australia an incentive to get recognition for their innovate water saving efforts over the 12 months before the awards are announced.

The Savewater Awards are an initiative of the Savewater Alliance Inc, a group of metropolitan and regional businesses from Victoria and New South Wales. The organisation’s awards are designed to recognise outstanding achievement in water conservation in businesses in Australia.

CEO of the Savewater Alliance, Nigel Finney, says the awards give businesses the chance to act in an environmentally responsible manner, fostering further water conservation in the broader community.

“The Savewater Awards provide a great platform for water saving stars to inspire, educate and motivate the broader community on how to use our water resources in the most sustainable way possible,” says Finney. “If you’ve invented a water saving product, we want to hear about it and help you raise awareness,” he says.

In the past, printers have been among the award recipients, and in 2004 Australian Graphic Servicing (AGS) of Mulgrave in Victoria won a savewater award in the ‘service providers’ category for helping to conserve water during print production.

AGS provides technical support to the Flexographic, Label Printing and Commercial Printing industries across Australia. It won a Savewater Award by designing a simple Water Saver Circuit that times water requirements on prepress equipment.

The Company’s Water Saver Circuit works by stopping the unnecessary flow of printing plate wash water, which typically comes on 40 seconds before it’s required and may run two minutes longer than required. This device has reportedly helped make monthly water savings of 40 to 60 per cent, with one printer reporting savings of more than 100,000 litres per month.